


We See Stars

by SolarQueen



Series: Jungle Fever [1]
Category: Lost
Genre: Childbirth closer to the end, Controlling Behaviour, Ecosystem Accuracy is Aimed For, Female Friendship, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Medical Accuracy is Aimed For, More Relationships Through the Series, Multi, Or As Fluffy As This Show Gets, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, Pregnancy, Pregnant Character, bad sibling relationship, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarQueen/pseuds/SolarQueen
Summary: Ellie and Josh, twins forced together.Max and Adrien, students alone.When Oceanic flight 815 crashes on an unmarked island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, survivors must band together to live through the dangers and the mysteries of the environment around them.
Relationships: Jin-Soo Kwon/Sun-Hwa Kwon, Original Female Character/Original Female Character (past), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Jungle Fever [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653928
Comments: 14
Kudos: 5





	1. Day 1 - Sandy Fires

**Author's Note:**

> Cringe culture is dead. Viva la OCs~

**22nd September 2004**

_Ellie_

Pain isn’t exactly a foreign concept to her, at least, the scratching, stabbing pains like the one in her face. The burning though? That’s new, and the sensation of it running up and down the lower half of her left leg makes her hiss when she’s suddenly coherent enough to do so. Her ears are ringing violently and all the reaction does is vibrate in her head and make her face hurt more

Her yellow sweater is covered in sand and blood (be it her own, someone else’s, or a mix of both, she isn’t totally sure) and her black skirt is slightly burned at the bottom on the same side her leg is; she can feel sand in her boots already.

She gently sits up, head swimming, and opens her eyes when she doesn’t feel the sun beating down against her, the first thing she notices is how blurry everything further than a two feet away from her is; it takes her a second of delirious confusion to realise she’s not wearing her glasses. She feels around in the sand, her hands wrap around the familiar frame of them as she shoves the large, circular lenses over her eyes; they’re dirty as hell, but so is everything else, it’s just a miracle the metal and the plastic hasn’t become all bent and smashed in the crash.

She gets a good look around then, she can’t see Josh, or James, or anybody she could find remotely familiar, but then the hulking mass of the plane fuselage is scattered across the beach blocking different lines of her sight - she suddenly remembers that the tail broke off in midair - there are fires blowing about in the wind created from the still running engines, and one of the plane wings shoots up into the sky like it’s trying to wave down help for them. Amongst the wreckage there’s a blonde woman, she doesn’t look hurt, but her mouth is open like she’s screaming; the ringing of Ellie’s ears covers any and all sound. There’s a black man stumbling around, an Asian man doing the same, they both look like they’re yelling for someone, and people all over the place are either wandering around with a vague idea of what’s going on, helping the injured and the pinned, or are sat at the top of the beach by a line of trees just staring into the distance. Shock, probably.

At the bottom corner of her eye she can see what exactly is causing the dull stabbing pain in her face: a small and thin piece of shrapnel, from where she doesn’t know, has dug itself into her face going from the edge of her ear to an inch away from the corner of her mouth. Great, that’s an ugly facial scar waiting to happen. There’s a panel of metal against her left leg, that must have been what’s caused the burning, it feels a lot cooler than it probably was before, but she still doesn’t have it in her to touch it and see - her leg hurts enough as it is, she doesn’t need sand getting on it too - it’s not like she can move much anyway. Her head swims again.

When the ringing in her ears fades, the noise matches the scene in front of her. The people yelling, the woman screaming, the men calling for others, and the buzzing and wheezing of the plane wreckage mingles together into some orchestra of chaos and disaster.

A man is at her side in an instant, coming out of absolutely nowhere to speak to her, “are you okay?”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” the words tumble out of her mouth as her body tenses, people really shouldn’t sneak up on other people after a _fucking plane crash_.

Sunken eyes and a prominent nose, that’s the first thing she notices about the man now at her right side, well, that and the fact that he looks barely scathed (lucky him), just covered in sand like he’d rolled around in it. He has no qualms about pushing the slab of metal from her leg, she yells in pain as it pulls and rips at the already tender skin, he pours half a bottle of water over a scrunched up shirt or something, rapidly pressing it to the skin and ignoring her loud cry.

“Sorry,” he apologises, she tries to smile but she thinks it’s more of a grimace from the sympathetic look he throws back at her in return. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t panic and hurt yourself more. Ethan, nice to meet you.”

She coughs, throat scratchy and sore, “Ellie, likewise,” she responds, running a hand over her brown hair that’s still tied in two short braids. She presses her hands over the t-shirt so that he can sit back at look over the beach again.

The yelling around them gets louder for a second before the engine lights up and explodes; she screams, hunching down at the same time Ethan does to avoid the fallout from the explosion as best they can. She shares a look with the man as they hear metal creaking, the wing is going to fall, they have to move and she can’t do that by herself so he pulls her arm over his shoulder and carefully loops one under her knees, hoisting her off the ground and taking several large steps back and away from the wreckage, further towards the tree line. They take cover in the trees as the wing falls, the whole wreckage bursting into a vicious set of flames sending more shrapnel and parts flying all over the place.

“Shit,” she mutters, watching the other survivors continue to tumble around the site, “I need-I- fuck- I need stitches,” she manages to stutter, wriggling out of Ethan’s hold to stand on her own foot and lean back against one of the trees, she vaguely points at the shrapnel still in her cheek with the hand not occupied with holding wet fabric to her burn.

“Shrapnel in face, right,” he helps her to the ground and dizziness hits her again, “and possible head injury,” he notes when she blinks to chase the sensation away, “sit tight, I’ll find something.” He darts off into the wreckage.

She scans the mess again, a man in a suit disappearing away from it all - probably needs some air, they all do - and the screaming girl from before is sat on a suitcase, head in her hands, as a tall, blue haired boy rubs her back and another boy with bleach blonde hair heaves his guts out in the sand to their left, the blue haired boy’s patting his back too. Down the beach a brunette man is giving CPR to another man, and the Asian guy is hugging a woman, wife probably. She can vaguely track Ethan skittering through the sets of people, only stopping to talk to a couple.

He returns to her maybe five minutes later, joined by a middle-eastern man with curly hair. He drops a bag at her feet and nods at the two of them before running back to others, probably looking to help out where he can.

The new man smiles at her. “I’m not a doctor,” he admits, eyes darting from her eyes to the shrapnel and back again, “but I know enough first aid to help.”

“S’the best we got,” she replies, “I appreciate it.” She shifts, sitting up against the tree a little more and peeling the damp but disgusting t-shirt from her leg, she sees him wince, “I’m-um- I’m Ellie, by the way.”

“Sayid,” new guy says, pulling the bag Ethan dropped towards him and unzipping it, seems the guy had collected a first aid kit or two.

Sayid pulls a tin from the bag and she laughs just a little, it’s one of those biscuit tins every grandma has in their house that holds the sewing stuff, one of those tins you’d get excited about seeing as a kid and then, later in life, when they actually have the biscuits in, it throws you for a loop. He pulls the lid open and there’s a whole collection of needles and threads just like she expected, he grabs a needle at random and a loose yellow thread; he makes a couple of attempts to thread it, but can’t seem to get the thread through the thin hole of the needle.

“Here,” she takes the two items, holding the needle at her eye level and closing one eye to focus and thread it in one go. As she’s tying that off, she watches Sayid put the biscuit-sewing tin back and rifles through the bag again to pull out a small tub of something, a scrap of cloth, and what’s left of a roll of bandages.

He plucks the threaded needle from her hand, “thank you,” and checks the shrapnel over again, “I’m going to need you to keep extremely still while I pull this out, okay?”

She nods, closing her eyes and doing her best to keep her face from scrunching up as he pulls the shrapnel out, she feels blood trickle down her face and dribble off her chin as he does so, and keeps her eyes closed as he presses a cloth to the wound and gets it ready for stitches.

She’s had stitches before, plenty, so the sensation of it is familiar, also the fact that she can even remotely feel pain is great because it means she isn’t _dead_ , and right now she can’t say the same for that idiot she calls a brother and the jackass she calls a friend because she hasn’t seen them yet at all. Honestly, she wasn’t even supposed to be in this part of the plane, she’d been sat in the tail, conversing with the girl in the window seat when the first bout of turbulence hit, Josh (the idiot brother) has flight anxiety as-is, and she’d left her seat to go check on him when it got worse and she just had to buckle into the closest seat. That might have saved her life, to be fair, given what happened to the tail during the crash, but still, she’d rather not be on an island with forty different strangers.

Soon, the warmth of his hands is pulled away from her face and she dares open her eyes: he’s dumped the shrapnel and bloodied needle and cloth onto the sand and is eyeing the little white tub and bandages now. She moves her mouth a little, she has a little more facial motion with the stitches, but she reminds herself to be careful so that she doesn’t pull them.

“Burn cream,” he says when they make eye contact, showing her the tub, “you look like you need it.”

She looks down at her leg grimly, “yeah...”

He offers her another smile, this one probably supposed to be reassuring but the pain is a little too distracting to take it. She tries not to watch him, if she does she’ll psych herself up and freak out more, so she turns her attention back to the crash; the sun is starting to set and the distant oranges of the sky start to match the wayward flames from fires other survivors have started to put together. Her eyes scan again and part of her lights up when she catches the familiar form of James, he’s stood next to the brown haired man who was doing CPR earlier and she realises the other man he was giving CPR to is Josh who’s up and breathing, sipping at a water bottle James probably found and rubbing at his chest.

The cream is so cold against her leg she jolts away from it with a small yelp when it makes first contact, she goes to apologise, but doesn’t bother when Sayid doesn’t say anything. As he continues, she grips at the ground beneath her, sand and grass weaving between her fingers and working its way under her nails.

“So,” Sayid starts, offering her the distraction of conversation that she decides to take and run with almost immediately, “where are you from?”

The question must have sparked from her accent, she’s very obviously not American (but neither is he)“A lot of places, I suppose. Born and raised in England though.”

“Anybody you know on the plane with you?”

“My brother and a friend, I can see them from here so they’re not dead, thankfully.”

He hums, throwing the burn cream back in the bag and grabbing the bandages he’s had balancing on his knee. She lifts her leg a little, letting him get the fabric around her ankle and start winding it up and around where the burn is; when he ties it off what’s left of the roll isn’t much, but someone can probably find a use for it. He throws that back in the bag too, lifting it onto his shoulder and holding out his hands to help her up; she takes them, not putting too much pressure on her bad leg, but enough to see if she can stand. Sayid stands several inches taller than her so she just uses his arm as support as they start moving towards the crash

He says something about wanting to start a signal fire for the people who’ll be looking for him and she nods at the idea, agreeing that it’s probably the best way they’ll be seen as it gets dark. James spies her from where he’s standing and his tense shoulders sag, Josh turns his head as he does this, looking to let out a giant sigh of relief, she looks at the other man, the stranger that saved Josh and they share a smile before he stands to make his way to the blonde girl with the other two young guys.

“Gonna go make sure my brother’s okay,” she says, gesturing vaguely over to James and Josh, he carefully lets her go, making sure she’s steady before stepping away. “Good luck with the signal fire, thanks for the help, and... I hope I see you around.”

He smiles again, bright and honest, “I hope to see you around as well, I hope your brother is alright.”

She gives him a little wave and starts to head over, she’s limping and leaning on cooled down bits of wreckage, so James meets her half way, offering her his arm to lean on which she takes with a small, slightly tense smile.

“Good to see ya alive, Sunshine,” his familiar drawl lacks any sarcasm and she can’t help but grin a little more freely, it’s nice when he actually gets concerned. “Joshy over here decided swallowing water was a wonderful idea.” he leans down and ruffles her brother’s already messy brown hair as she sits in the sand again. “But Pretty Boy managed to save his ass.”

“You two okay?” She asks, pulling her knees up to her chest and curling into her sweater as a brisk breeze blows past them.

Josh shrugs, sipping from his water bottle again and glaring at the ocean like it could comprehend the fact that it just tried to kill him; his jeans are damp and sand sticks to them like glitter to glue and like his t-shirt does to his torso, the brown leather jacket being the least wet thing he has on, must’ve found it after waking up. He’s almost as tall as James, standing at roughly six feet tall and having a lean build, his eyes are a similar grey to hers but where hers are tinted light like silver, his are darker like steel, and where her nose is small and upturned just slightly with a dark dusting of freckles, Josh only has a single old scar through his right eyebrow and his nose is long and slightly fatter. The two of them never think they look alike for twins, but other people seem to like to point it out.

“I could be dead,” he says after swallowing his water, “so a broken rib and the world’s biggest migraine is better than that.”

She nods, looking to James who raises his arms out, a smug smirk on his face, “barely a scratch, darlin’, I’m good.”

“How about you?” Josh asks, quick like an afterthought, she stops herself from rolling her eyes.

“Just on track for a sick new face scar and a leg burn.” She stretches the bandaged limb out to show it off, purposefully shoving her boot in Josh’s face which he shoves away almost immediately. “Got _my_ ass saved by a guy named Ethan, could’ve been caught in that second explosion if he didn’t drag me to the trees.”

James leans back on his arms and looks over to Sayid’s signal fire which is looking pretty good, ‘Pretty Boy’ and the trio he went over to are sat nearby to it but the only people helping Sayid build it is a hooded guy and the bleach blonde boy who was throwing up earlier.

“And who might Aladdin over there be?”

She looks around for a split second, people are close so she glares at him just slightly, and hisses a, “Sawyer.”

He holds up his hands again, this time in surrender. “Sorry, sorry.” He doesn’t mean it. “But seriously, who is he? A doctor?”

She shakes her head, “no. His _name_ is Sayid, and he was just fixing me up since I couldn’t exactly do it myself.”

He leaves the conversation alone and night slowly falls onto the camp; there are several fires set up, she, Josh and James all sat near one another group of survivors made though the largest is still Sayid’s. There’s the dull lull of conversation amidst the different groups, some people sound like they’re arguing, others discussing when the rescue boats are coming to pick them up. Then there’s the few people who have actually managed to fall asleep, sheltered under parts of wreckage or using their own or others’ suitcases and bags as pillows - the only ones really asleep are the majorly injured though, the ones who don’t have the energy to stay awake and wait for the rescue boat.

A big guy - Hurley she’s pretty sure he introduced himself as - has been going around handing out what he could find of the plane food, he came by a little while ago and Ellie got some cold shepherds pie for saying hi to him, and while James and Josh didn’t want any ‘nasty plane food’ they still snatched some of what she had when she offered.

Now they’re just trying to take as much warmth from each other and the fire as they can, keeping conversation to a minimum with the other people around their fire. With the lull and quiet of the camp, the next thing that happens is enough to jolt them out of their comfortable positions.

A loud metallic sound echoes across the beach, something akin to metal drums or metal sheets being smashed and scraped together through speakers into an empty room, and then the noise that follows is almost like an exotic bird - a demonic, possessed sounding exotic bird, but it has the same hiccuping cry that many have. Their heads whip around as the smashing and clattering gets louder and more violent.

“What in god’s name is that?” Josh mutters, sharing a brief look with them.

She hears James curse as they see a tree or two fall, the pregnant girl whips around to the others asking if anyone saw it too and several others look between their own groups for some kind of solace in their fear. They stand, moving away from the fire and towards the crowd of other survivors staring down the jungle, she leans against Josh’s shoulder and they come to stand behind Sayid and the hooded man.

They stare out into the darkness until the sounds and the falling trees fade to a stop, barely taking their eyes away when they’re left in silence again. Then hoodie guy speaks:

“Terrific...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me remembering days after I wrote this that you're not supposed to put cream straight on a burn but I’ve written it now and it’s there: ...she’ll be fine.
> 
> Follow me on twitter if you’d like ^^ @fandom_bam
> 
> Thanks for reading !


	2. Day 2: Bear in the Big Green Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a second chapter this isn’t my fave lmao - I wrote this *months* ago so the future chapters just read better to me lmao   
> Enjoy anyway !!

**23rd September 2004**

_Josh_

Honestly, he’s still just tired from everything that happened yesterday, he’d rather be sleeping in (preferably on a fucking _rescue boat_ ) than stood around in this big crowd of survivors talking about the noises from the jungle last night. Most people had been introduced after that commotion, when they couldn’t sleep after the fear the noises brought, the one thing left to do was say hi to most of the people they were stuck with until help comes.

He’s been properly introduced to Shannon by Boone - the guy who saved his life after the crash - and briefly met the two boys Shannon is associating herself with at the moment: Max, an American college kid turning twenty in October, and Max’s boyfriend Adrien, who attends college in the US but is from France (he has the accent to prove it but his English is practically fluent).

Max is about as tall as him and has shaggy hair dyed an electric blue, his eyes are a deep brown and his whole body is kind of like a stick. His hands have a dozen callouses though, so, Josh can only assume the boy’s degree is pretty hands on. He’s probably one of the few people who’d been sleeping during the flight if the lazy gym shorts and torn up hoodie combo says anything about him.

Adrien on the other hand, despite being one of a couple to throw up yesterday, is pretty put together: cuddled up in some black turtleneck and brown trousers. He’s the same height as his boyfriend but holds way more muscle than Max, he looks super athletic and naturally stands with his feet in first position (and Josh should know, he went to enough of Ellie’s ballet classes to pick up a trick or two). His hair is much neater, the blonde of it almost white yet still managing to look natural, his bright green eyes keep scanning the beach and he’s kept his hand wrapped firmly wrapped around Max’s since the jungle screaming.

He spies his sister across the group, conversing with that Sayid guy and the pregnant girl (Claire, if he remembers correctly). He thinks they’re talking about the noises, but they could also just be checking each others’ wellbeing, what with Ellie stretching her bandaged leg out every few seconds and Claire running her hand over her baby bump, how that girl can make conversation so easily has always been a mystery to him. James is by himself, smoking away from the main group by what’s left of the fire they sat by last night, he looks lost in thought but he could just be people watching like Josh is.

“It didn’t sound like an animal,” Michael, the dad of the ten-year-old, says, “not exactly, I mean.”

Rose, the other person given CPR yesterday, spares a glance at the trees before speaking, “that sound it made, I keep thinking there was something familiar about it.”

“Really?” Shannon asks, “where are you from?”

“The Bronx.”

Charlie speaks up then (a guy it had taken him way too long to remember given how _into_ Drive Shaft he was a couple years back), “might be monkeys. It’s monkeys, right?”

James drops his cigarette in the sand and saunters over, coming to a stop next to him and leaning against his shoulder, “sure it’s monkeys, it’s monkey island.” He honestly thinks James’ sarcasm and wit is the only thing that’ll drag him through the next few days.

The big guy that gave them (though more specifically, Ellie) dinner last night decides to throw his two cents in too, “technically, you know, we don’t even know if we’re on an island.”

Sayid folds his arms, “we’re on an island.”

“Plus,” Ellie pipes up, raising her hand just a bit “part of the noises _did_ sound like it could be some kind of bird or other animal so that part we can maybe blow off? The metal sounds and louder crashing, though, isn’t something I’ve ever heard from this sort of environment before... so, that’s a no to the monkeys unfortunately.”

Adrien looks at her with a quirked eyebrow, “how can you be so sure of that?”

“She’s a zoologist,” Josh says, watching her throw a small glare his way for speaking for her, “it’s kind of her _thing_.” He almost feels bad as eyes turn on her and she pinches the bridge of her nose. Almost.

A few people have been dispersing as the conversation goes on, Rose returning to her place on the beach, Claire going off to find a place to sit down, James has disappeared, and that Doctor (Jack, he’s pretty sure) with the brunette (Kate?) have been muttering with each other since yesterday so the fact that they wandered off at the same time isn’t surprising at all. Most of the other people he barely remembers the names of are going about trying to find their luggage in the scatterings of the wreckage - he should probably do that today too.

The discussion drifts after a while, what’s remaining of the group from the noise discussion (which includes him) are just kind of standing in a big circle like a bunch of jackasses. Charlie asks for sunblock and Shannon offers him some of hers, then Hurley - the big guy - brings up the fuselage after leaning inside of it.

“So, I was just looking inside the fuselage... it’s pretty grim in there. You think we should do something about the, uh...” he pauses, looking down at Walt, Michael’s kid, who’s fiddling with some half-broken Rubik’s Cube, probably barely listening into the topic at hand. “B-o-d-y-s.”

Michael squints at him, honestly Josh has to stop himself from doing the same because a man of Hurley’s age should know how to spell bodies, should know how to spell in general, actually.

“What are you trying to spell man? ‘Bodies’?”

Walt, not looking up from his puzzle, corrects him, “b-o-d-i-e-s.”

Josh snorts, “look, mate, if you come up with what to do lemme know, I’ll probably lend a hand. But until then,” he jams his thumb in the direction of the many scattered suitcases across the beach, “I’m looking for my shit.” He doesn’t forgets to throw a, “yes I’ll look for yours too, El.” Even though she didn’t ask him too.

One thing he knows he doesn’t have to worry about is Ellie’s carry-on, considering she was back in the tail before turbulence hit means that that bag is _gone_ so he hopes there wasn’t anything crazy sentimental in there given where the tail ended up.

He goes around, kicking the sand up where he sees bags and bending down to read tags if any look familiar. He finds James’ carry-on in between a small pyramid of suitcases he thinks a few of the others put together while they were looking for their own bags, and manages to wrestle his own backpack out of a couple jagged pieces of wreckage. He swings both bags onto either shoulder and starts shuffling through a few stray piles of cases before coming upon his, he thinks he sees James’ half buried in the sand a few feet away and Ellie’s looks like it’s near the opening of the fuselage.

He hefts his case into his arms and turns back to find some place to put their stuff, coming upon a piece of plane sticking out of the ground that could work to keep their stuff out of the way and together until either a) rescue comes, or b) the survivors start putting together better shelters. He hopes the better shelter thing happens before tonight because this piece is barely long enough to cover their suitcases when they’re lying down, let alone long enough to sleep beneath.

He dumps the carry-ons and his suitcases, and runs back across the beach to snag James’ suitcase and slide Ellie’s away from all the dead bodies. As he’s pushing those two under the wreckage piece, legs come into his peripherals. He cranes his neck up to look at Ethan standing beside him, they stare, just for a second, then the other man speaks.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Jack, Kate and Charlie have gone looking for the cockpit.”

He raises an eyebrow, “have they now?”

Ethan nods, but quickly changes the subject, “Ellie’s your sister?”

“Yep,” he pauses, pointing up at him, “so watch it.”

Another nod, then, Ethan walks away.

Josh doesn’t bother watching him leave, turning back to his little area and manoeuvring the suitcases to stay completely under, standing his sturdier case up just in case the plane piece decides to topple over anytime soon.

He stands back up, brushing sand off his sleeves and stretching his back out until it clicks. Then he looks towards the sea, spotting that bald guy, Locke, sitting there staring out at the waves.

He goes over, coming to a stop next to him and seeing if he’ll look up and say something... nothing. So Josh tugs up his jeans and squats down next to the older man, sparing a glance out at the ocean and wondering if Locke is seeing something no one else is or if he’s, like, praying or something like Rose has been.

“So are you, like, in-shock crazy or trusting-the-stars crazy?”

Locke chuckles, not turning to look at him and instead staring up at the sky, “depends what you define as crazy.”

Clouds roll in above them quickly, he looks up too, surprised by the sudden shift from bright to overcast. Another second and he’s blinking rain from his eyes, an incessant, loud downpour clattering against the ocean and the metal of the crash site. He watches Locke’s smile grow as he raises his arms out to take in the rain. 

“Trusting-the-stars crazy, got it,” he yells over the noise, straightening up and taking off across the sand when James whistles for him under the cover of the wreckage he’d left their stuff beneath.

He ducks under the metal and kneels beside James, looking across the beach to see Ellie standing under the cover of the wing with Claire and Rose. He’s soaked, and he can feel the sand sticking to his jeans where he’s dug his knee into the ground to balance himself, James looks particularly dry, probably having been in this dry spot since he threw the man’s carry-on under it a few minutes ago.

The jungle noises are sudden, they make him jump, and they’re a stark contrast from what could have been considered a peaceful day so far, he sees more trees fall. James mutters a curse under his breath, looking back to the jungle; he spots Ellie gripping Claire and Rose’s hands as they look towards the noise too, talking.

They listen to it go on and on, knocking down more trees and hopefully not (but probably absolutely) chasing down their doctor and his plucky duo of companions on their trip to the cockpit. It doesn’t stop until just before the rain does, both abrupt and leaving them all unsure if it’s truly over or not. None of them move until at least ten minutes of silence and sun passes.

When it does, people move slow, creeping out of their hiding places like bunnies from a burrow, James lights a cigarette again and wanders off like nothing ever happened, ever the enigma.

Josh brushes his hair from his face, jeez it feels like he dumped himself back in the ocean. He switches his standing suitcase out for James’, lying it down and opening it up to grab a change of clothes (finally); some old, ripped jeans, and a button-up shirt. He pulls the pieces on quickly, using what he can as cover though many other people are around their luggage changing into something dry much like him. He’s pulling on his trainers when someone speaks up from behind him.

“Your name’s Josh, right?”

He whips around, hand to his heart and suppressing a swear, coming face to face with Walt. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, kid, and yeah, the name’s Josh. What’s up?”

The boy bounces on his heels, tapping at his sides and he notices the dog lead in his hand, “will you help me look for my dog, Vincent? He’s been missing since we crashed and I just wanna make sure he’s okay.”

Well, the probability of a dog surviving a plane crash that barely the fourty-eight people they have now survived is pretty slim, but, the kid needs something hopeful and if a dog’ll help with that then so be it. Plus, hey, if this Vincent is alive then the whole group will have a dog around, that’ll boost morale... probably.

He tightens his shoelaces, “sure, buddy, lead the way.”

* * *

_Max_

The notebook in the sand is the one thing that’s provoked him to talk to Josh’s sister all day, the first thing to split him from Adrien since last night too. She seems nice, a little annoyed at everything at the moment (given yesterday and the injuries it looks like she got, he can cut her some slack, Adrien’s been pretty similar) but she comes off pretty smart and rational, hell, maybe having a certified zoologist on this floating rock could help them out if they’re stuck much longer.

He finds her sat cross-legged under a piece of wreckage, looking through her suitcase and having changed out of her wet and bloody clothes she’s been wearing since yesterday; now in a pair of shorts with a blue t-shirt tucked in, her hair is pulled down from their braids and instead she’s tied it in a half-up, half-down style, the half that’s up twisted into a small bun, the waves made by the braids are highly prominent.

He coughs, a little awkward, and she looks up, flashing him a smile and leaning back on her hands, the panel of metal above her casting a decent enough shadow that the sun doesn’t reflect off her glasses.

“Hey, Max, what’s up?”

“I found this.” He pulls the moleskine notebook from his pocket and her eyes light up. “I didn’t go through it or anything but I checked the front cover and saw your name - Adams, huh?”

She chuckles, “yeah, how _common_ right?” She leans forward and takes the book as he hands it down to her, flicking through it and nodding at whatever it is she’s checking for. “Thank you, so much, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, you have nice handwriting by the way.”

“Pfft, uh huh, maybe for the first page, after that it’s real chicken scratch.”

He shifts a little, bouncing on one foot to the other before sitting cross legged in front of her. “So you’re a zoologist? Like, studying animals zoologist?”

She nods, “yep, worked hard for my degree I’ll have you know.“

“I think that’s a really cool job... have you been to any cool places?”

She smiles, placing her notebook on top of all the stuff she’s been sorting through in her suitcase. “Well, I haven’t done tons of international work but I know my workplace now offers those sorts of trips,” she pauses, rubbing the back of her neck, “what do you do? In college, I mean, obviously.”

A shout from across camp stops him from answering, in fact, it cuts the whole conversation short. Ellie’s eyebrows furrow and Max stands up to try and see who it is, lending her a hand as she awkwardly climbs out from beneath her shelter.

It’s Sawyer and Sayid, stood opposite each other with Michael, Walt, and Josh being the first observers, a few close by to the pair gather around as the shouting continues. He exchanges a look with Ellie and they slowly take off across the beach to see what’s going on, he sees Adrien leaving his spot to come see too.

He let’s out a surprised shout when Sawyer takes a swing at the smaller man, Sayid simply dodges but also aims his own swing, leading the rest of the observers to either gather faster or shout in their best attempts at stopping the men.

“Woah! Hey!” Ellie yells when Sawyer aims to swing again, running between the two men and holding her hands out placatingly in Sawyer’s direction, “what are you _doing_?”

But the two ignore her, or, Sawyer does, lunging forward and forcing Josh to pull the girl out of the way to avoid being plowed over by the much bigger man. Sawyer throws another punch but Sayid dodges again, the pair yell insults at each other while everyone else watches; Adrien appears at his side and looks like he wants to step in but, much like Josh with his arms around Ellie’s shoulders, he has his hand around his boyfriend’s wrist to stop him from getting himself involved.

“Sawyer!” Josh tries this time, but Sawyer still seems to be actively ignoring anyone that’s not Sayid. The two end up on the ground, grappling and beating at each other heatedly.

Michael makes an attempt then, pushing Walt behind him and taking a tentative step forward, “hey, guys. Come on, man, _hey_!”

Jack - the doctor - comes out of nowhere, leaping on the men to grab and pull Sawyer away, Michael doing his best to keep Sayid either on the ground or a few feet away from Sawyer too. Kate and Charlie come to a halt beside Max.

“Hey! Break it up, break it up!” Jack yells, holding Sawyer’s arms behind him to try and control the wild pulling, “come on! That’s it, it’s over! That’s it!”

He guesses Jack is a little more imposing or intimidating to either one of them over Ellie’s little stature (but, man, does that girl have some _lungs_ ), because while they don’t really stop yelling, they don’t totally lunge at each other like Sawyer did when Ellie was there.

“I am sick of this redneck!” Sayid shouts, pointing antagonistically at Sawyer.

“You want some more of me, boy?”

“Tell everyone what you told me! Tell them I crashed the plane! Go on! Tell them I made the plane crash!”

Oh. Oh _wow_. Low blow Sawyer, _really_? Max gets it, he does, it’s not exactly an... unfounded claim but it still doesn’t exactly sit right with him.

“The shoe fits, buddy!”

“What is going on?!” Jack yells above the pair of them, cutting through whatever it is Sayid said (Max can barely speak French let alone Arabic) and looking at the on-lookers, sharing a pointed look at Josh and Ellie until Michael risks a step between the animosity, handing a pair of handcuffs over to Jack. Oh shit.

“Look, my kid and Josh found these in the jungle.”

Sawyer growls, “this guy was sitting in the back row of business class, the whole flight, never got up. Hands folded underneath a blanket.” Sayid scoffs, which just makes Sawyer glare harder, “and for some reason - just pointin’ this out - the guy sittin’ next to him didn’t make it.”

Adrien folds his arms, “I think you might be reading way too much into his behaviour.”

Sawyer’s glare turns onto him, “Oh you want a piece of me too, Lumière?” Max pulls Adrien back just a bit.

“Stop!” Kate finally screams, waiting for the pair to back off from each other before speaking again, “we found the transceiver, but it’s not working. Can anybody help?”

Sayid nods, “Yes, I might be able to.”

Max claps his hands on Adrien’s shoulders, “Adrien too, we’re - uh - engineering majors, communication minors, but he’s way better at it all than I am, so that might be useful?”

He expects to hear some kind of argument from Sawyer again, but he looks over and sees Ellie’s elbowed herself out of Josh’s grip and is hissing something up at the southern man. They’re both glaring at each other and she’s got a fistful of his shirt, it seems like a tense moment until Ellie rolls her eyes and shoves him away, throwing a look back at Josh before marching back across the beach. Man that group is weird, if Sawyer wasn’t so obviously American, Max would honestly think he was related to the pair.

“It’s dual band, military spec,” Sayid says, it takes Max a second to realise conversation’s been going, Adrien is stood by Sayid, looking at the transceiver and listening to the older guy intently. “Chances are, the battery is good, but, the radio is dead.”

Kate shifts her weight from one foot to another, hands on her hips. “Can you fix it?”

“I need some time.”

Adrien smiles, “I’ll offer what help I can.”

Max watches them wander across the beach, shoving his hands in his pockets and heading back over to where he and Adrien have been keeping their stuff: right near what’s left of the signal fire. He absently wonders what his classmates are going to think back home, it was a complete accident they were stuck in Sydney longer than planned in the first place, but apparently the whole trip was barely an organised mess and now the whole school is going to think they’re dead.

He shakes his head to chase the thought away and sits down amongst their stuff, pulling his suitcase towards him and rifling through to find something more appropriate to wear than his plane-sleeping clothes that are still a little damp from the rain. He reorganises Adrien’s things a little too, putting the open binder discarded in the sand back into his boyfriend’s open duffel bag. Wiggling off his sneakers and gym shorts, he quickly changes into some jeans and his steel-toe boots as well as switching his hoodie out for a simple red t-shirt.

Boone comes over as he’s standing back up, running a hand through his hair and shoving his hands in his jean pockets.

“Hey, was wondering if you wanted to help us sort the wreckage,” he asks, “Locke suggested we moved things around and make a pile of the useful pieces we could use for shelter if we needed to.”

Max nods after a second, rolling out his shoulder and hearing it click, “yeah sure, could do with some exercise. I hope people are being careful though, jagged edges and all.”

Boone waves his hand a little, “we’ve had a couple people cut themselves, mostly little pricks on fingers, but, Jack’s on standby over by Air Marshal guy just in case.”

He spares a glance over, seeing the doctor kneeling next to the guy with shrapnel in his abdomen; the Marshal doesn’t look good - pretty close to death, actually - and while Max doesn’t want to rag on Jack who’s doing so much for all of them right now, he hopes the doctor doesn’t waste all their medicine on a dying dude. They don’t know how long it’ll take for rescue to come and if someone gets hurt or sick in a way that’s healable, they kind of need that medicine.

He follows Boone to where the groups are working, pulling unused, but decent sized, parts of wreckage and piling them around alongside unclaimed luggage, tarps and bags of clothes. What they make is something of an emergency station: if people need shelter they can grab a sheet of metal and/or a tarp and they’ll be set; if they need clothes then there’s plenty of stuff left over from the dead that people can grab in any given situation - uncomfortableness of wearing clothes of strangers and dead people aside.

He and Boone work as a good pair, folding tarps while talking about their moms and their lives at home; marching from the wreckage to the emergency station with slabs of plane above their heads as they talk about their favourite movies and foods.

He notices Shannon across the beach as they’re working, curled up and staring at a dead body. He runs over to Boone to let him know and tries to ignore the man rolling his eyes as he goes over to her; Max returns to helping the others.

“Shannon!”

Well that doesn’t sound good.

The girl goes storming past, slowing down only for a second to latch onto his arm and pull him in the direction she’s going. They end up by Kate and Sayid, who are supposed to be heading out to hike to find a transceiver signal by now.

“We’d like to come with you,” she declares, staring straight at the two - so this is a _we_ thing now, okay.

Boone follows up, “she’s not going. She doesn’t want to go and she certainly can’t make Max go.”

“The hell I’m not!”

He holds off on saying anything for the sake of staying out of this argument. What is it with all the siblings and arguing? Do none of them get along? He can’t even begin to imagine arguing with his brother like this, but, he and his brother have, like, a ten year age difference so maybe that’s part of it.

The pair continues to shout, yelling over each other at any given opportunity; Sayid looks so sarcastically enthralled it’s almost enough to make Max laugh.

“It’s what she does. She postures and thinks she can boss other people around-”

“You don’t know what the hell I do!”

“-makes really bad decisions to upset her family, which, at the moment is _me_.”

“Shut up and stop trying to be charming.” She turns, her fury (or determination, at this point Max really can’t tell) over to Kate and Sayid. She tugs on his arm again, “we’re coming with you. Right Max?”

Now or never. “Uh- yeah, yeah I could get off my ass anyway.” He tries to throw an apologetic look over to Boone but the other man is still glaring daggers at Shannon.

Kate eyes them all a little warily, the tension is obvious, “I don’t... know if that’s such a good idea.”

Shannon glares at her, “you’re what? Two years older than us? Please.”

She then turns to Charlie as he wanders over, asks him if he’s joining them, he asks her if she’s joining them, and grins when she says she is.

“Look,” Kate interrupts, “everybody can come. But we’re leaving _now_.”

Adrien runs over, with a quick call, shoving Max’s backpack into his arms and smiling, prepped as ever, huh.

“Run at the first sign of danger, okay?”

“You know it,” he chuckles, “I’m a big chicken but I’m not about to get myself eaten like one.”

Adrien manages to laugh, so he leans forward and kisses him, short and sweet and enough to reassure his boyfriend that he’ll be perfectly fine with the hiking group. He pulls back and flashes his own boyish grin, swinging the bag onto his back and turning with a nod to the group.

Kate takes the lead, and Sawyer joins them as they’re walking down a dirt path through the trees, throwing a sarcastic comment at Kate. Max is not far enough involved in either of them to really care about their relationship status right now - if they even have one - give it a week and maybe he’ll be invested in the island drama, it took him two to take his roommate’s drama seriously.

It’s a real hassle getting to the right vantage point though, he’ll say that for a fact. Honestly, Adrien would’ve been so much better suited to this, all the climbing is pulling at all the upper body strength he _barely_ has, and trying to make sure no one else in the group has slipped and fallen to their death is even worse. Shannon keeps slapping away any of Boone’s attempts to help her, even when she does need it, so Max takes that help instead, gratefully thanking the other young man as they get higher for not letting him fall behind and fall off.

They eventually come into a long stretch of flatland covered by tall grass and minimal trees before someone, namely Sawyer, says anything beyond a ‘thank you’ or a ‘help’, the southerner’s ever present sarcasm grating at Max’s nerves already.

“Okay! Wide open space, you should check the radio, see if we’re good.”

“We’re not going to have any reception here,” Sayid huffs, trying to keep his voice level.

“Just try it.”

“I don’t want to waste the batteries.”

“I’m not asking you to keep it on all day.”

“The mountain’s still blocking us,” Max states, pointing up at the imposing spire and trying to diffuse another argument between them before it starts.

“Stay outta this.” Sawyer points at him, glaring like he did at Adrien back on the beach and he wonders why he even tried. “Just check the damn radio!”

Sayid whirls, anger obvious in his voice, “if I just check, we might not have any juice left when we get to-“

A growling cuts him off accompanied by a rustling of the nearby leaves. It sounds nothing like the noises they’ve been hearing so far, but it still doesn’t sound any less bad or any less unsafe; Shannon grabs at his arm, her other reaching out to grab Boone’s sleeve.

“What the hell’s that?” Boone asks, stepping closer to Shannon.

Kate looks towards the bushes the noise came from, stepping back towards their path, “something’s coming.”

“It’s coming towards us, I-I think.” Charlie stutters, making to follow after Kate who’s already telling them to get moving.

They take off, Max makes sure Shannon stays in front of him and Boone runs next to him, doing the same. Sayid ushers them, and they don’t notice Sawyer’s not moving until Kate calls out for him, Sayid pulls her along too.

_BANG_

The sound of the gunshot repeats at least nine times and they all stop, spinning around to see Sawyer standing his ground, firing a gun in the direction of the bushes the growling came from. After the final shot, a large, white mass tumbles into the path and lies still, dead.

Shannon stares at it, not daring to get too much closer as the group goes to inspect it. “That’s... that’s a big bear...”

Boone taps it with his shoe, as if at any moment it’s going to jump up and maul one of them. “You think that’s what killed the pilot?”

Wait something killed the pilot? Since when? He looks around, catching both Shannon’s and Sawyer’s confused eyes. So, they didn’t know either, at least he’s not the only one in the dark about all this.

“No,” Charlie says slowly, shaking his head, “that’s a tiny, teeny version compared to that.”

It takes Max’s adrenaline a minute or two to calm down, but when it does his thoughts catch up: the white fur. “Guys that’s a fucking _polar bear_ ,” he says, staring wide eyed at it.

“That can’t be a polar bear,” Boone says in disbelief.

Kate and Sayid tilt their heads, sharing a look with each other before staring at the dead animal, “it’s a polar bear.”

“But... polar bears don’t usually live in the jungle...” Shannon argues half heartedly.

“No, polar bears don’t live even _near_ this far south,” Sayid corrects.

“This one does,” Max mutters, chewing on the top of his thumb.

He squats down and dares to poke the dead beast. He sees a smudge of black on it’s hide, grown out hair distorting whatever symbol the marking used to be but he can roughly see what he thinks is probably a name underneath the other mess: _Xena_. He has more than one question and one he didn’t think he’d have to ask would be who the hell gave a polar bear on a tropical island a name?

“Did,” Sawyer corrects, “it did.”

Kate turns on him, eyeing him sceptically as Max looks up to watch them.

“Where did that come from?”

Sawyer shrugs, exasperated, “probably Bear Village. How the hell do I know?”

She rolls her eyes, “not the bear. The gun.”

The Marshal Jack’s been looking after, that’s obvious - though it takes the others a few more prodding questions for Sawyer to admit that - nobody but military or authorities travel, are even allowed to travel, with that kind of weaponry. Of all people to lift it off the guy, it had to be Sawyer though, the volatile redneck that only ever seems to listen to the tiny British zoologist (and/or whatever the hell Josh is, not that he’s seen the two men interact in the same way as Sawyer and Ellie do) when he’s not looking to knock out the guy he’s accusing of being a terrorist who crashed their plane.

“I saw a guy lying there with an ankle holster,” the southerner explains, barely holding in his sarcasm, “so I took the gun. I thought it might come in handy and guess what? I just shot a bear!”

“So why do you think he’s a Marshal?” Kate continues, hands on her hips

“Cause he had a clip on badge. Took that too.” He flashes the badge to prove his point, “thought it was cool.”

“I know who you are,” Sayid says after a second of pause, “you’re the prisoner.”

“I’m the what?” Sawyer blinks. Yeah, not likely, he doesn’t look like he could get himself out of a Chinese finger trap without help, let alone a pair of handcuffs.

“He’s a prisoner travelling with a couple of english people? A couple of english people who probably don’t even know what a gun actually looks like?” Max doesn’t know why he’s defending the guy considering how much of an asshole he’s been, but to be honest, he mostly just doesn’t think a million false accusations at one another is going to do anything productive.

Sayid turns to him and he can’t tell if the look in his eyes is hurt or angry. “What you still think I’m the prisoner?”

“No.” He shakes his head, “I never did. I’m just saying it’s not helpful for everyone to be going for each others’ throats like this. He’s not a prisoner, he’s just a jackass who only knows how to get along with two people and clearly doesn’t get enough normal human interaction.” He ignores Sawyer’s grumble, but the man isn’t loud enough to stir an argument about it again so Max’ll take that for as much of a ‘thank you’ as he’ll probably ever get.

“He’s got a point,” Shannon agrees, folding her arms, “I mean, who says the prisoner’s even still alive? Maybe they got the handcuffs off and died in the jungle somewhere when whatever apparently killed the pilot was running through it.”

That’s a good point. He’s almost surprised Shannon brought it up, but some people are smarter than they look and she seems like one of those people, bitchiness and snark in every word she says aside. People have been so hung up about a criminal maybe or maybe not being around that it’s hindering their chances of working together and going home, it’s ridiculous, whoever wore the handcuffs probably wouldn’t want to be rescued and put back in handcuffs anyway, so the likelihood they’d stay with the main group of survivors is low unless they’re trying to stop everyone from getting rescued somehow.

Charlie shifts his head, looking like he’s deciding whether to agree with a couple of nineteen/twenty-year-olds and their half assed attempt at keeping another fight from breaking out.

“Yeah I could see that,” he says with a finite nod, “but - uh - is it really still a good idea he stay with the gun?”

Sawyer reacts but Kate reacts faster, snatching the gun from him as he turns and pointing it a him to keep him from trying to take it. She’s steady with it, clearly someone with experience at least holding one, but she still asks Sayid how to take it apart.

“There’s a button on the grip. Push that, it will eject the magazine.” She follows his instructions quickly. “There’s still a round in the chamber. Hold the grip, pull the top part of the gun.” When it’s apart, she hands the magazine to Sayid and goes to give the gun back to Sawyer.

When Sayid gets the magazine he ushers Max, Shannon and Boone to keep moving forward again, they let Kate and Sawyer catch up in their own time. Hopefully this holds off another disagreement for at least until they can actually check the radio.

They end up climbing through another large area of flatland, this time short grass growing on it with a slight incline to it. As they’re moving forward Sayid calls, swinging his bag off his back to pull out the transceiver.

Sawyer looks back but doesn’t stop trekking up the incline, “oh! Now’s a good time to check the radio! Not before, but now!”

“We’re up higher.” Sayid mumbles, loud enough for them to hear.

“Yes, we are!”

“Don’t start.” Max hisses, flashing a glare at Sawyer that the man doesn’t hesitate on returning with his chin jutting forward.

“Bar. Hey! We’ve got a bar!” The lot of them run over, gathering around him like moths to a flame as he tries to holler down the radio. “Mayday! Mayday!”

There’s the squeal of feedback coming out of it, blocking what call Sayid tried to get out.

“What is that?” Kate asks

“Feedback,” Max answers, rubbing his cheek as his mind starts to run circuits trying to figure out what’s causing it.

“What would do that?”

Sayid shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

Sawyer grumbles, “I’ll tell you what would do that. This guy not fixing the radio. This thing doesn’t even work.”

“It works, but.” Max clicks his fingers, his memory serving him well, “something else is transmitting already.”

“Transmitting from where?” Charlie jumps in now, looking at the transceiver curiously.

“Somewhere close. The signal’s strong.” 

“Somewhere close? You mean on the island? That’s great!”

“Maybe it’s other survivors,” Boone suggests, his voice betraying him in his confidence.

Shannon scoffs, “from our plane? How would they even-“

Sawyer interrupts her before she can get even more bitchy at Boone, “what kind of transmission is it?”

Sayid starts mumbling again “Could be a sat phone, maybe a radio signal...” He starts fiddling with the dials, trying to tune into whatever signal is blocking the main frequency of the island.

Charlie starts to get excited, bouncing on his feet so much it reminds Max of his little brother. “The rescue party. It has to be.” Something starts to echo out of the radio, it’s quiet at first as Sayid tries to catch the exact frequency, but when it’s volume increases it doesn’t take any of them very long before they recognise the language the woman is speaking. “It’s french! The french are coming! I’ve never been so happy to hear the french!”

“I never took French. What does she say?” Kate asks, looking at them all, Max already wants to retract into his clothes like a turtle.

Sayid grins too, looking around while he has the chance, “does anybody speak French?”

“She does,” Boone states after a minute, pointing across the group at Shannon.

She flinches, jolting backwards a little. “No, I don’t.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You spent a year in Paris!”

“Drinking not studying!” She turns to point at Max now, “what about him? He’s the one with the French boyfriend!”

He splutters, “we’ve been dating for ten months not three years! I’ve met his parents and been to France one time! I’m not fluent!”

Over their arguing, a male voice comes from the radio, interrupting the female’s panicked french. “Iteration seven-two-nine-four-five-three-one.”

Sayid starts panicking, muttering several ‘no’s out loud as he fiddles with the dials on the transceiver. Kate starts panicking a little too, quickly asking him what the hell is wrong.

“The batteries are dying!” He says.

“How much time do we have?”

“Not much.”

“I’ve heard you speak French!” Boone yells at Shannon, arms thrown out wide in exasperation, “just listen to this! Both of you! Listen to it!”

Sawyer glares at them as they hesitate, “you speak French or not? Because that would be nice.”

The male voice pipes up again, repeating the same sequence of numbers but ending in a two instead of a one this time. It’s a repeating message... from the number it’s been playing for a long time.

“It’s repeating,” Max says, swallowing thickly as they realise he’s right and Sayid starts trying to do the math.

He grabs Shannon’s arm gently, making her look up at him, he tries to keep his voice low, but loud enough that she can hear him over everyone panicking and yelling at them and each other around them.

“Translate it together, yeah?”

She takes a deep breath but nods, snatching the radio from Sayid and kneeling on the floor, he drops down next to her and they hold the radio next to their ears.

“She’s saying... ‘please’,” Shannon starts, voice tense and quivering, “she’s saying, ‘please help me. Please, come get me.”

He nods when she looks to him, the pair ignoring the others still yelling at each other around them. The iteration voice echoes again, the number getting bigger and it begins to repeat again.

“I’m alone now,” Max takes over, rubbing Shannon’s back as she starts shaking, catching the same terrifying cry for help he does, “on the island alone. Please someone come. The others, they’re dead. It... it killed them-“

“It killed them all,” Shannon stutters, sniffling and wiping at her eyes furiously as the radio falls into her lap and it goes dead.

“Sixteen years.” Sayid’s voice cuts through the tense silence.

“What?” Sawyer asks.

“Sixteen years. And five months. That’s the count,” Sayid explains, “it’s a distress call. A plea for help. A mayday... if the count is right, it’s been playing over and over... for sixteen years.”

Boone’s eyes widen. “Someone else was stranded here?”

“Maybe they came for them,” Kate argues, trying to be hopeful, but she didn’t hear the desperation in that French woman’s voice like he and Shannon did.

Sawyer, far more realistic, argues, “if someone came, why is it still playing?”

“Guys,” Charlie starts, looking up and at the landscape around them, “where are we?”

They don’t move for a while, Max and Shannon gather their wits, pushing down their anxieties and trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling the French transmission has given them. His thought from earlier about Adrien being better suited for this hike? Yeah, absolutely not, the message was short but he and Shannon could have missed something or translated a word or two wrong no matter how much French they speak right now, but Adrien? He’s grown up in France his whole life until he moved for college, if the message freaked Max out who knows what Adrien would’ve heard and how it could’ve made him react...

By the time it’s dark they have a fire set up, one minor fight about Sawyer maybe or maybe not walking back to the beach by himself half resolved almost the second it started, not that Max had been particularly focused at that point, he was mostly trying to flush the terror out of his system by making mild, forgettable conversation with Charlie.

The whole group is gathered around the fire now though, and they’re passing around a couple of bottles of water and a bag of sour patch kids Max had found in his backpack. Sayid takes the quickest sip of water and the least amount of food, instead focusing on something and muttering a couple things to himself. Max and Shannon have the sour patch kids between them now, one bottle of water for them, Sawyer, and Boone while the other is shared between Kate, Charlie, and Sayid.

Shannon is sat between himself and Boone, legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them as she stares into the fire. Boone leans back on one of his arms, the other resting on his raised knee while Max simply sits with crossed legs, resting his chin on his hands. Around them is a black and white blanket his mother had crocheted for him some years ago, it had been in his bag along with the water and snacks they all share now so Adrien must have thought they’d be out here by the time it got cold; the fabric is just about big enough to go over the three of them with how close they’re sitting, Max holding one of the corner over him and Boone pulling his side back on whenever it slips slightly.

Sayid places a rock on the ground, lighting a small stick on fire. He gestured to the rock, “this is Australia.” He points to the torch in his other hand next, “this is us.”

Sawyer scoffs, still a little sour from not being allowed the gun back, “nice stick.” Max smacks his arm with the back of his hand as Sayid ignores him.

“Two days ago we take off from Sydney. We fly along the same north east route every commercial airliner bound for Los Angeles does.” He’s using the flaming stick to simulate the plane, holding it above the Australia rock as he turns to Kate, “now the pilot, he said he lost communication with the ground, correct?”

Kate nods, “yeah, six hours in. He turned around and headed for Fiji.”

“So, we changed course.” He turns to torch, “regrettably, no one knew we changed course. The turbulence hit. We know the rest.” He snuffs the flame out on the ground, throwing the stick into the main fire instead.

“The pilot said we were a thousand miles off course.”

Great. First Max thinks they’re just on some island near Hawaii somewhere, then he’s lied to about all the people in the cockpit being dead cause turns out the pilot was alive and got _killed_ by the jungle monster, now he’s finding out the pilot was coherent enough to tell them they’re _thousands_ of miles off course of where they should be and now there’s a chance they’re somewhere no one’s ever even found before given the fact that a terrified French woman has been desperately calling for help since he was almost four.

“Okay,” Sawyer starts, the mocking tone in his voice making Max want to hit him again since he got away with it the first time. “Really enjoyed the puppet show. Fantastic. But we’re stuck in the middle of damn nowhere. How about we talk about the other thing? You know that transmission Abdul picked up on his little radio? The French chick that said, ‘they’re all dead.’ The transmission’s been going on a loop for... how long was it, Freckles?”

Kate leans her cheek on her fist, “sixteen years.”

“Right. Let’s talk about that.”

“We have to tell the others, don’t we?” Boone questions, chewing on his nails and looking at the rest of them.

“What’s there to tell?” Shannon asks ruefully, hugging her legs tighter.

Max has to agree, “exactly, we’ve not spent enough time learning French to probably even translate that remotely correctly.”

“Wanna bet, Cogsworth?” Sawyer asks, “if I can learn Italian in damn near three and a half weeks, you can be fluent in French after almost a year.”

“You speak Italian?” Boone’s eyebrows furrow.

Sawyer takes a sip from the water bottle and says something quickly and fluently with a smug smile Max hates to admit he deserves because for a guy he didn’t expect to speak anything other than English, his pronunciation (while clearly amalgamated with his southern drawl) is pretty good.

“Even so,” Sayid says after a moment of just eyeing Sawyer, “no one’s going to tell anybody anything. To relay what we heard without fully understanding it will cause a panic. If we tell them what we know we take away their hope. And hope is a very dangerous thing to lose.”

He’s not wrong.

“So we lie.”

Max sighs, looking up at the thousands of stars he’s never been able to see before with the light pollution at home. Lying is what he was afraid of.


	3. Day 3: Can’t Save Everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be posted yesterday but animal crossing came out and I’m low-key stressing about coursework due on the 25th but here we are...
> 
> Enjoy

**24th September 2004**

_Ellie_

It’s early morning, still dark, but she can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the being surrounded by strangers, or her worrying for how James is doing with the hiking group, maybe Josh suddenly being around constantly is still jarring. Her brother is under the cover of the plane piece behind her, snoring into his arm and using a bundle of scrunched up hoodies as a pillow to stop him breathing in the sand. 

She sits just outside of the overhang, fingers absentmindedly toying with the bandages on her leg as she looks at the constellations hovering over the crash site. For once the camp is quiet, most people have completely exhausted themselves after going two days with no sleep, she can only wish she was one of those people; then there’s the little infirmary Jack and Hurley have set up on the north side of camp, the marshal had been making gruesome noises for the few hours before dark, but he’s silent now too.

She figures Jack isn’t sleeping yet either, the poor guy’s been moving non-stop since the crash, barely a second to himself in the slowing chaos; but he’s the only doctor they have, rescue boats still haven’t shown, so she doesn’t really know what else she could expect. She spares a glance at Josh before she stands up, stretching out and starting to cross camp to go see if her suspicions are correct.

As she walks, she idly watches the small groups of survivors sleeping around dwindling campfires: Adrien and Max are tangled around each other, a few centimetres away from where Shannon and Boone are, Hurley’s sleeping up against a scrap of metal and Claire isn’t too far off - she hopes Claire’s baby is okay, and she hopes they’ll get off this island before the young woman has to give birth.

She comes to the infirmary before she knows it, the structure is sturdy, given it’s construction with plane scraps and tarps. Pushing back the tarp that seems to work as the front door, she spots Jack hunched over the suitcase of medication he’s started to collect, the crinkling of the tarp seems to startle him and his head whips around to see her.

She waves a little, sliding in and dropping cross-legged on the other side of the dying marshal, “shouldn’t you be asleep.” It’s a statement more than a question, and Jack looks more tired the moment the words leave her mouth.

He drags a hand down his face and rubs his neck, eyes flitting from the marshal’s wound before returning to her, “I could say the same to you,” he gestures to her face and leg, “how are your injuries?”

“I think Sayid patched me up pretty well,” she says, gingerly tapping at the stitches holding her face together. She nods to the marshal, “how’s he?”

“He just passed out again, been pretty adamant about finding this criminal of his.”

“You have any idea who it is?”

He hesitates, “I have my suspicions.” In her experience, a statement like that means he knows or has a good indication of who it is, but she doesn’t feel like pushing the subject when they’re both tired and potentially irritable. “I don’t think it’s Sayid, that’s for sure; I heard a couple people thought it might be Sawyer.”

She frowns a little, eyes wandering vaguely in the direction other survivors are down the hill, “yeah, me too. Sawyer’s a dickhead and he can be dumb and reckless and a _little bit_ volatile, but, he’s not as heartless as he likes to play either,” she turns back, managing a small smile, “just don’t tell him I told you that, he’ll sulk if he knows I’m ruining his tough, southern image.”

Jack lets a laugh out of his nose, an exhausted exhale of some sort but it’s there, “my lips are sealed. Though if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is your relationship with him?”

She raises an eyebrow, suppressing a snort, “if you’re asking if we have sex that’s a no. Sawyer’s like family, been friends with my Uncle Oliver since the two of them were kids.”

He nods a little, a light, probably awkward, dusting of red on his face. After a moment the marshal shifts, a groan escaping his throat that gets the two of them kneeling next to him; nothing comes of the movement, the noise, the man drifts back into a still sleep that makes him look long dead and pale like snow. She and Jack release simultaneous sighs of relief, dropping back on their haunches and letting go of tension in their shoulders.

“You should probably go and get some sleep,” Jack says, running a hand over his head, stress rolling off him in waves, “I have to stay here with him.”

“You need sleep just as much as I do,” she argues gently, giving a slightly pleading look and looking down at the marshal again, “I can stay here, if you’re adamant you’re not going anywhere, that way if he wakes up I can help you with him.”

“What about Josh?”

Something under her skin flares for a second and she bites out a retort before she manages to smother the feeling, “what about him? He’s my brother not my handler.”

“Right, sorry.” She catches him squinting at her from the corner of her eye before he sighs, “well I guess you’re not giving me much of a choice, settle in.”

**0/0/0/0**

The marshal doesn’t stir for the remaining few hours of dark. When the sun starts to break the horizon, it hits the gentle waves of the ocean and the water lights up with small, glittering rainbows. If she were down in the main camp she’d probably have woken up with the sun, woken with the island heat and clear skies; but sheltered by the tarp her body gets the rest she needs, recharging after several days moving and helping.

When she wakes, Jack is already up, though his sluggish movements tell her he did the same as she did, recharge. He’s already working around the marshal when she gets her wits about her, stretching up to loosen her muscles and accepting what little water is left in the bottle he offers her.

“Oh man, I needed that,” she whistles, handing the bottle back and shifting back to her former position on the other side of his patient, “running on fumes was doing neither of us any good.”

There’s an eye roll but a smile, “who here is the doctor?”

She grins lopsidedly, stitches halting the other half of her face moving too much, “you should follow your own advice more often then.”

While she can’t see, the camp sounds lively, people up and moving, doing whatever it is plane crash survivors are going to be doing on the third day waiting for rescue.

“Jack! Jack-“ Hurley comes bustling into the infirmary, slapping the tarp behind her open and coming to a startled stop just before he trips over her, “oh my god you’re in here too, uh, hey.”

She rises to her feet and smiles, chuckling out a greeting, “hi.”

“What’s up Hurley?” Jack asks, standing and wiping his hands on the end of his shirt, “is someone hurt?”

The other man shakes his head, “na- no- nada- it’s the others, they’re back.”

She shares a look with the good doctor, rolling her shoulder and following the two men after a final check of the marshal’s state. They make their way back down the beach and come into Sayid’s announcement just as he finishes getting people’s attention and filling them in on the apparent failed transmission.

“For now, we should begin rationing our remaining food; if it rains, we should set up tarps to collect water. I need to organise three separate groups. Each group should have a leader: one group for water - I’ll organise that-“ across the group, Kate spots them and makes her way over as Sayid continues pointing between people.

Ellie starts to move between the small sea of people, offering a see-you-later wave to Jack and Hurley before making her way over to Sayid, figuring she can help him in the water group. She feels eyes on the back of her head and knows almost immediately who it is when James brushes past her with a quick shoulder squeeze; he makes a beeline for Josh who looks like he has to force himself to stop glaring - god that man is so- so _protective_ is the only nice word she can think of.

The gaggle of survivors split into the groups they’ve assigned themselves, fanning out across the beach in little clumps to discuss and organise themselves. A small collection stays surrounding Sayid, listening intently to his quick fire orders and following his pointed gestures like cats with a laser-pointer.

She smiles, charmingly crooked as it’s forced to be, and throws out a quick two-fingered salute once the group surrounding him has scattered, “Ellie Adams reporting for water duty.”

The tension in his shoulders drops immediately and she’s thankful she’s been able to make people a little more at ease around her so quickly - especially when it makes Sayid look less stressed and makes Jack go to sleep.

“Thank you for joining me,” Sayid says, returning her serious-playful tone with one of his own, “I believe we’ll be transporting a tarp to that prime, open area.”

She nods, “you got it.”

They start across the beach, weaving between other groups and nodding at other members of the ‘water group’ who are pushing around bits of wreckage to tie their tarps to.

“So, what stopped you?” She asks as they come to the small station of tarps, luggage, and plane pieces.

He side eyes her, picking up a blue tarp a few down from the top of the pile, “pardon?”

She smiles, “what stopped you from sending the transmission, cause, I don’t think it was the mountain.” And she doesn’t, it’s believable, for sure, but in her experience they were out long enough to have travelled far enough to not get blocked by that thing.

“Do you not trust me?”

She shrugs one shoulder, her voice taking a slight sing-song tone as they start back across the beach “well I have only known you for barely three days.” She scans the beach and spies Josh throwing his arms out about something James says, “plus, my brother doesn’t look very happy about whatever Sawyer’s telling him.”

In all honesty, she can’t be totally sure James isn’t just ragging on Josh for the glaring earlier, but she also expects him to tell them what happened out there later anyway so even if James isn’t _actually_ telling Josh now, her brother will probably know later.

Sayid’s head whips around to catch the tail end of that conversation James disappearing off towards the fuselage, “jackass.”

“Try knowing him for eight years,” she jokes, following after him to find a good rain-catching spot, “besides, whatever happened I’m sure Kate’s telling Jack, she beelined for him the second she spotted him earlier.”

Sayid huffs, hopefully less impressed with his fellow hikers than with her for bringing it up in a fish for information. He takes a second to mull it all over, “someone was already transmitting,” he admits.

“Oh...” that’s- she doesn’t want to say ‘not what she was expecting’ since what else could she expect? What else stops a radio transmission going through when it’s not a big bloody mountain? But, it feels a strange amount more surprising than she’s sure it should, “how long?”

“A thirty second cry for help repeating for the last sixteen years and five months.”

“Someone’s been stuck here for sixteen years?” Her mouth falls open, slightly agape, “do you think they’re still here?”

There’s an uncertain beat of silence as they come to a stop, “unfortunately I think so. They could be dead by now but I have the unsettling suspicion they’re out there somewhere.”

She hums, circling around the wreckage pieces Sayid’s decided upon and helping unfurl the crinkling tarp and find the string on the corners of her side. What they’ve found is a couple upright, lopsided beams sticking out of the sand, from where? Who knows, she doesn’t build planes for a living. But the beams have holes they loop the thin rope through, tying it up like a small hammock so the rain should pool in the centre of it.

“I feel like I have to ask,” he starts up again, tone much lighter than before, “how old are you?”

She flashes a faux-irritated look his way, “trying to make conversation with a lady and starting with her age, disappointing.”

He snorts, “my apologies for the disrespect, if it makes you feel any better I’m almost thirty-seven.”

“As a twenty-six year old that _does_ make me feel better, thank you.”

Once everything is tied she moves around and makes a couple extra adjustments to each of the knots. Sayid stands next to her, watching her work as her tongue peaks out from between her teeth while she loops the last one, securing it with a knot she used to use when she helped make enrichment items for tigers, the same knot that’s come in handy for more than just big cat toys in the last few years.

There’s a sudden flash on the opposite side of them, startling them out of their work to look up and find Max, hiking clothes and all, pulling a developing Polaroid out of a camera.

“Max, what _are_ you doing?” She asks, a little incredulous.

The young, blue-haired man grins, “Ethan found this thing in the unclaimed luggage, said I looked like the type to get good pictures” he flashes the developed picture at them, “pretty neat, huh? I wanted to take some memories, throw them in a scrapbook if we get home or something.”

Sayid smiles a little, the enthusiasm contagious, “well _when_ we get back home I hope you send us all some of those photographs.”

Ellie finds herself grinning a little as well, “oh _definitely_ , I need these memories too.”

Thunder rumbles above them, and one second the skies are clear, the next the clouds are crying. People scramble as they usually do, Ellie has to wonder why they all act like fire is falling from the sky, but she and Sayid check that their tarp is collecting the water well enough before darting off to help some of the other small groups secure the makeshift wells they’ve made on the ground.

Max tucks the camera to his chest, holding his arm over it and letting the rain hit his bare skin. He uses his other hand to shield his eyes, looking across the beach and wincing, “oh yeesh, looks like team leaders over there are having a squabble.”

Ellie looks up, away from the task at her feet and frowns. She rises, shifting her weight onto one leg and brushing wet hair away from her eyes, “I think Jack’s just tense because of the marshal.”

Sayid rises too, folding his arms and sighing, “he’s trying what he can, but I worry he’s using too much of our medicine on a dying man”

“I’ll go see if Ethan’s found any more in the rest of the luggage” Max says, nodding at them before taking off in whatever direction Ethan last was.

And just as abruptly as it began, the rain comes to a halt, many of the clouds parting in the sky though several imposing ones linger above them, threatening another downpour.

“There you are,” Josh appears out of nowhere, making her jump as he grabs her arm, “Sawyer and I have been looking for you.”

Ellie fails to stop herself from rolling her eyes, “you know where I’ve been, stop being dramatic.”

Sayid’s eyes flick between the two of them and he points towards the infirmary, “I’m going to go and talk to Jack.”

“Kay, come find me if you need anymore help,” she says, trying to look apologetic for Josh being weird.

Sayid nods and wanders away, leaving her to get dragged in the opposite direction. James is down by the shore, leaning back on his arms with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he’s got a little bag of stuff at his side and she kind of wants to joke about an old job she dragged him into; Josh is here though, and it’d probably just piss him off to be out of the loop.

“What’d you do, grave rob?” She calls, wiggling out of Josh grip and leaning down with her hands on her knees.

He smirks at her, blowing a puff of smoke in her face like the prick he is, “they ain’t usin’ none of it. Finders keepers, thought you told me that.”

She slaps him upside the head, making him snort, “that doesn’t apply to this situation, dumbass. But, whatever, just tell me you left-“

She’s cut off by a wail from across the beach, the marshal’s getting worse and she doesn’t think Jack is going to be able to fix him, especially given they might not get off this island for a while - hopefully they won’t be stuck for sixteen years, but, longer than they should be here certainly. The cries are loud and make her skin crawl, they remind her of Camilla, and Italy, and the _mess_ that job was.

“You’d think he’d do us all a favour and die.” Josh’s voice breaks her away from the memories, cold as he always seems to be. She turns and glares at him.

“ _Okay_ , Gigantor,” James jumps in to scold him before Ellie can, pushing himself to his feet and snubbing his cigarette out in the sand, “I want the guy on the other side as much as the next person but not this slowly.”

The marshal’s noises fluctuate from sharp cries and long-winded whines, he barely quiets down even as the sun starts to set. Knowing everything, today will probably be the man’s last day no matter what Jack wants, she wants to think the marshal knows he won’t live past tonight, that he’s accepted it.

Their trio moves closer to the centre of camp where everyone else is with their growing campfires and exchanged looks. Josh spies his little circle of associates (or whatever he considers Boone and the rest of that group) and heads over to them, his eyes flashing with a silent order to come over as soon as she can. She looks over at James, following his eyes to where Kate is, trying to light a fire closer to the infirmary; Ellie thinks she knows who the criminal is now, no one else has been as interested in the marshal’s state - except Jack but he’s a _doctor_ \- whatever Kate did doesn’t matter now though, so Ellie needs to decide if she’s going to say something or feign ignorance, she’s not going to judge the other woman when she associates herself with James and her Uncle Oliver.

She shakes herself out of her thoughts and catches James’ arm before he leaves, her voice quiet, “James,” her eyes flash towards the infirmary as another scream rings out, “I know what you’re thinking, just, don’t miss, okay. Don’t make him suffer anymore.”

“I’ve hit harder targets, Sunshine, you know that,” he means it, she knows he does, but the softness in his expression is still there.

“Maybe, but still.”

He smiles tightly, “I won’t miss.”

The gunshot that rings across camp after a few minutes makes her flinch, she hasn’t flinched at that noise in years but something about it is just jarring. She half expects it to rain, to have the clouds cry upon them with some final goodbye to the long-suffering soul; but much like the survivors they stay silent, a quiet overhang in the night with no personal sorrow for a stranger with a title but no name.


	4. Day 4: Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this baby took forever for me to post, I’ve had it written for forever but I wanted to wait til I finished writing the chapter that took me months lmao  
> Next one should come out when I have another chapter fully written (just to keep myself ahead yk) so that might be tomorrow, next week, or another month from now 💛

**25th September 2004**

_Adrien_

He runs a hand through his hair, standing by a smouldering campfire and watching the sun rise over the horizon. People are still asleep, after last night there seemed to be some sort of emotional exhaustion that hit everyone and they all seemed to group together around the original signal fire area.

Something about this island is off, and it’s not just the monster in the forest or the French distress call Max told him about, but they certainly don’t help. There’s the lingering sensation of being watched, watched by something or someone thatmeans nothing good. He has to wonder if there are more people here, there’s a French woman - unless she’s dead - but who’s to say there hasn’t been people before or after her that are here too?

He sighs, rubbing his face and blinking against the orange light of the sunrise. He’s overthinking things, he knows it, he always does, but everything about this place has just generally left him frazzled since the crash; it probably doesn’t help he hasn’t eaten much after spilling his guts out that first day.

He hasn’t changed his clothes in days, preoccupied with helping people organise metal scraps and electronics for Sayid to try and fix the transceiver, though how he’s going to try and get a message through with one already playing will be the hard part Adrien’s sure. The turtleneck and trousers feel like they’ve been surgically attached to his skin by constant rain, sweat, and sand, so there’s a strange sense of satisfaction being able to peel the pieces off in favour of a looser button-up and jeans; one of these days he’s going to have to throw himself in the ocean for a bath or something, but today is not that day and he rolls the sleeves of his shirt up past his elbows as he pulls fresh socks and his sneakers on.

He’d seen Locke, the slightly strange but very friendly bald man, wander off down the shore maybe an hour ago, what he’s doing Adrien doesn’t know but it probably doesn’t matter much. The only other person he can see awake that he really knows (as much as one can know someone in four days) is Claire, resting up on some discarded seats and writing in her little journal.

“Hello,” he greets as he makes him way over, attempting a warm smile despite the still lingering chill from yesterday, “how are you feeling?”

Claire looks up, returning his smile with one of her own; he thinks she’s only a couple years older than him, but she’s quite motherly already and, maybe it’s the pregnancy, but it makes her very easy to talk to, he doesn’t feel the urge to awkwardly shove his hands in his pockets even when he doesn’t immediately catch what she says.

“Hey, I’m alright,” she runs a hand over her stomach, looking at the bump fondly, “he kicked again this morning, s’why I’m up.”

“I’m glad you’re both feeling alright. Do you need anything?”

She closes her little journal and shuffles up the seat slowly, “company would be nice.”

He chuckles lightly, couching back until he drops into the seat and stretches his legs, much longer than hers, across the sand. They sit in a comfortable quiet, soaking up each other’s presence and watching orange light ghost over the ocean surface. For once nobody’s rushing, nobody’s trying to organise things in a rush to make sure no one else dies, nobody’s panicking about noises in the tress that keep falling down.

For once on this damn island, it’s peaceful.

He’s been avoiding thinking of home, either one of them, because even now he doesn’t know if he’s actually going to see anyone ever again or if he’s going to be another life lost to whatever goes on off this beach. He has friends, a roommate, Max’s friends and family, so many people back at the school he calls home that are either praying he’s alive or have resigned that hope - then there’s _home_ home, his little apartment with his mother in France. He can only hope reports of the missing plane hasn’t reached that far yet, but, even he thinks he’s being too optimistic on that front, an entire plane with over three-hundred people on it can’t disappear and not get reported.

God, and that brings out the fact that three-hundred people were on the plane and only forty-five or so are here now at this camp. Nobody survived from the front section of the plane, and who even knows what happened to the tail and it’s passengers after that got ripped off. There’s so many bodies still left in that fuselage to rot in the baking heat, there’s no respect for these people and Adrien hates to admit that they don’t have the resources or time to give each of them the time they deserve, hell, he’s pretty sure the marshal’s either going to get thrown in or buried, who knows how many more of them will join him from here.

“You think too loudly,” Claire mumbles, breaking him out of his thoughts and forcing him to open eyes he didn’t even realise he’d closed. She leans a cheek on her fist to look up at him and reaches over to squeeze his shoulder, “I can’t tell you not to worry without being a hypocrite, but focus on the good things for now, okay? Like this sunrise, or that you’re with Max.”

He exhales slowly and smiles, “focus on the sunrise and Max, you’re right.”

He tries, the sunrise hasn’t really changed from how it looked yesterday, and really he only caught the tail end of that one, but it reminds him of something lighter: the first time he met Max on an early morning of first year. Max dropping his books on Adrien’s feet against the backdrop of an orange sky and apologies so profuse Adrien had wondered if he started speaking another language; he remembered laughing so hard he’d forgotten the homesickness that’d been plaguing him that day, and really the rest could be considered history so to speak, given where that chance encounter led them.

He drags himself back to the present, having enough of just stewing with his thoughts. He pushes himself to his feet and stretches up before touching his toes to stretch out his legs, Claire gives a little giggle and he laughs a little with her, spotting the other British man, Charlie, waking up a few feet away and waving him over since he knows the guy was keeping Claire company yesterday.

“I will see you later, I think,” he says to her, “if you need anything and Charlie can’t help, let me know.”

She nods, yelling after him as he sets off back to the rest of the survivors, “remember to focus on good things!”

He suppresses a little chuckle and steps around Max’s still sleeping body only to almost run into Ethan stood a foot or two away with a duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Uh... can I help you?” He asks carefully, raising an eyebrow.

Ethan is definitely a... weird one, disappearing amidst the other survivors and appearing again hours later with things no one has any clue how he found; he’s certainly resourceful in that regard though, a good scavenger.

“Max was asking me yesterday if I’d found anymore medicine for Jack,” the man explains, “since he’s asleep I was wondering if you wanted to take it to him with me?”

“Sure...” he replies slowly, squinting a little but following him on his trek across the beach.

Adrien catches sight of Jack by the shore, Kate just standing up from his side. He taps Ethan on the shoulder and points, without much acknowledgment Ethan turns in that direction. They cross paths with Kate and Adrien stops, letting Ethan wander forward and strike up conversation with Jack while Kate stops just next to him.

“How’re you feeling? Noticed you haven’t been eating,” she says, a reassuring smile on her face as she brushes hair out of her face.

He grimaces, “yeah, sensitive stomach just- uh- trying to be careful.”

“Ah,” she nods, “well, make sure if you feel any worse to go and see Jack, I’m sure he’ll have something for you.”

“He open for general business now?”

Kate snorts and they part ways on that. Jack and Ethan are finishing up their conversation too and wandering off to do... whatever it is they do when they’re by themselves.

Adrien pivots on his feet, turning to the camp that’s coming alive before him. He makes his way back to where he once sat, passing by Hurley listening to something on a Walkman, eyeing Michael as he appears with a dog that Walt charges for, and smiling at Max now awake and shaking sand out of his hair while Shannon fiddles with a sudden new pair of sunglasses she’s placed on her head.

“Adrien!” Max all but cheers, grabbing his arm and pulling him back down onto the sand.

He laughs at the same time Shannon from next to them does, even Boone cracks a little smile over his usual serious expression. The siblings have been good company the last few days, the two still argue with each other and get Max dragged into the dangerous jungle, but Shannon’s the same age as them and Boone is barely older than Claire so they’ve formed a little group inside the bigger group of survivors, like Jack with Kate, or Sawyer with Josh and Ellie.

“Okay, now that you’re here.” Shannon’s grinning, pulling her hair over one shoulder and ushering Boone to sit just behind her next to Max while Adrien rests his chin on Max’s shoulder.

The camera appears in her hands the next second, and they’re all laughing a little as she takes a picture of the four of them. It feels odd to do such a casual action out here, but there’s an aura of importance around each picture taken like they’ll be special later; it makes sense in some capacity, these pictures will be what shows each and every one of them if they get home, they’ll showcase the normalcy of their time here and the friendships they’ve formed that’ll eventually bring them back together some time down the line.

Max smiles brightly, tucking the camera back in his bag as Boone shakes out the developing photo. Adrien leans up and kisses Max’s cheek.

They’re normal, they are. They’re definitely allowed to be.

**0/0/0/0**

He jolts awake at the loud sound of barking, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up after a minute of Vincent - Walt’s returned dog - not quieting down. He untangles himself from Max as the other boy wakes alongside the rest of camp, and pushes himself to his knees to look across at the lab. He’s barking at the fuselage, and as he rises and goes over with others, he can hear the sounds of rummaging and moving - something’s _in_ there.

Michael’s trying to apologise for Vincent waking people up, but at this point most people have gathered, they’re as curious as Adrien is as to what the foraging sounds are, Jack’s come over with his small torch and Sawyer behind with a much bigger one. Max slips his hand into Adrien’s.

“What is it?” Kate whispers, looking around at the sudden crowd.

Claire chews at her bottom lip, “someone’s in there.”

Sayid shakes his head, eyebrows crinkling in some mix of confusion and disbelief, “everyone in there’s dead.”

Jack shifts, looking to bite the inside of his cheek, “Sawyer.”

“Right behind you, Jackass.”

Jack at least has the decency to look sheepish; he makes a move to go closer, but Ellie follows him forward and shoots her hand in front of him, shaking her head; she says something, but the pair of them are a little too far away from the major crowd for him to hear. If what’s in there is some kind of animal, Adrien figures Ellie’s the best for this, he watches as Jack nods and hands her the small torch he holds, exchanging more words with her before nodding again and leaving her to it.

From the corner of his eye, Adrien sees Josh make a move to go after her, some sort of irritation contorting his features, but Sawyer has a grip on his shoulder and as Jack turns around to shush them, they’re all ushered away from the opening of the fuselage, Ellie disappearing from Adrien’s sights as they move.

As they gather together further, Jack is doing his best to keep people quiet, some have just gone back to their little camps, too tired to deal with whatever is going on, but Adrien is too tense to even think of going back to sleep.

He shoots a quick look to the forest, worried amidst this the noises are going to come back and startle whatever’s in there enough to get Ellie hurt; the girl may work with whatever animals she’s worked with with that zoology degree of hers, but that doesn’t stop him worrying. They can’t afford to lose someone again so soon, not emotionally, not mentally, the marshal no one really knew, but Ellie’s been running around with them, a loss like that straight after the last one, who knows what would happen to everyone’s hope and morale.

After moments of heavy silence, a loud bang reverberates along the metal of the fuselage accompanied by a high pitched whistle; what follows is an even higher pitched squealing and shadows scurry out of the fuselage in a sporadic zig-zag back into the forest. His worries are halted and he releases his iron grip on Max’s hand.

“Okay!” Ellie yells after the shadows disappear, voice echoing out of the plane to reach them, “they’re gone!”

Most people let out loud sighs of relief and disperse, but Adrien and Max stay with the remaining people heading over to the fuselage. They make it over as Ellie’s climbing out again, Sayid reaching forward to give her a hand, and to pass her a bottle of water.

“Alright, what the bloody hell was that?” Charlie asks, after they’ve let her suck in lungfuls of fresh air.

She smiles, “boars.”

Boars. _Boars_. That means food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Twitter ~ https://twitter.com/_solarheart_  
> My CC ~ https://curiouscat.qa/_solarheart_  
> My Ko-fi ~ https://ko-fi.com/bambean


	5. Faded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first of many flashbacks in this series; also another bitch I took a century to post despite having written forever ago, so, sorry ^^;

**20th September 2004**

_Ellie_

“Hey you,” she mumbles, black heels clicking against the concrete slabs of the cemetery stairs leading up to the small, private lot.

The gravestone is unkempt, moss barely kept off of it by general cleaners and good samaritans. The name is faded by the sun and erosion not unlike the memory of the person it belongs to, and, while an equally faded picture sits by a long burnt-out candle, nothing sits at the stone’s feet.

Ellie brushes a stray twig from the top and crouches down, setting the bouquet of sunflowers down and moving the old candle out for a new one with a vanilla scent, she sets alight with a small match. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she reaches forward and brushes her thumb over the disappearing name: _Camilla_.

“Haven’t come visit in a while, have I?” She says, folding her dress beneath her to sit on the concrete, “life’s been doing its thing. Still got that job I told you about, but, between now and the last visit I got a cat - named him Shark... um, James is still doing his thing, and Josh published another book, I know how much you love his stuff.”

She pauses, closing her eyes and exhaling before reaching into her collar and pulling out a little gold coin. It’s dull, grubby, but she bounces it along her fingers with a small smile.

“Finally finished the Italy job,” she says, tucking the coin amongst the sunflowers, “sort of a wild mess with all of it so even if you’d made it through we wouldn’t have brought too much back. Buyer’s out in LA now, so heading there next - Eric says sorry, by the way, for what happened and that he couldn’t come say it himself... now or back then.”

The silence around her used to be heavy, like the weight of a building on her shoulders, she used to cry at this spot for hours until she could drag herself back to her hotel. But it’s been a long time since Camilla died, and she’s had her chance to grieve, to move on and do something a little more normal with her life.

She runs her hand along the worn stone and smiles again, getting back to her feet, “I’ll try to come visit sooner than another year, promise.” She turns and takes her leave.

Passing through the main part of the cemetery again, she gets another look at the beautifully decorated stones scattered in rows; families tying little balloons or throwing dozens of their loved ones’ favourite things around the plot. Camilla would never get that same treatment, be it because of Ellie’s own faults or just the general lack of people still alive that are consistently able to come down and shower her spot with love. For a long time she’d felt bad about it, she’d felt bad about a lot of things revolving around Camilla, but James had visited with her once, and he always had a way of making her feel better about the whole thing.

“Knew I’d find you here.”

Her head shoots forward to the entrance gate, Josh is standing there, hands shoved in the pockets of a bomber jacket and tinted glasses protecting his eyes from the sun.

She finds herself laughing a little, baffled at her twin’s sudden appearance, “what on earth are you doing here?”

He grins, freeing one of his arms to throw it over her shoulder and start down the path back to the livelier part of town, “I’m on holiday, but I ran into James yesterday and he mentioned you came Down Under together - I had to take a shot in the dark, but, old university friend, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, blowing a loose strand of hair away from her eyes, “how long are you here for?”

“Leaving on the 22nd, headed for LA.”

A small noise of surprise escapes her throat before she can stop it, “hey me too, Oceanic?”

“That’d be the one.”

“Wild,” she laughs again, the reaction feeling foreign to her system when brought out by Josh.

Something about him feels off, not that he ever feels normal so to speak, but he seems brighter than the last few times she’s seen him (which, granted, hasn’t been very often). He’s not usually so... soft with physical affection, not usually so loose, but then again, he is on holiday which can make even the grouchiest little shit pretty happy; frankly she isn’t sure she should be putting this much thought into him, they’ll split by the end of the night, maybe see each other at the airport, and when they touch down in LA she won’t see him again for another year unless he wants something or feels like his life is tumbling out of control.

The man in question comes to a stop before a small pub, grin still prominent on his face and eyes still hidden by the dark lenses of his sunglasses, “let’s go get a drink, El, don’t know about you but I sure as hell need one.”

By now, yeah, she needs a drink.


	6. Day 5: Moral Dilemma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup my little bubble of readers whom I appreciate wholeheartedly, I'm back with another chapter I've had written for months and just done the last bits of editing to
> 
> Enjoy lmao

**26th September 2004**

_ Ellie _

The incident with the boars fades into a new morning rather seamlessly. She still feels like she has the taste of death on her tongue from clambering through the fuselage, just about the only useful thing that came out of it was giving her a better idea of the ecosystem.

She’s sat around with some of the others, those that seem to have been dubbed the ‘leaders’ by the majority of the group, and then her and Charlie; the two of them were having a conversation (mostly about Josh’s old obsession with Drive Shaft which immensely brought up Charlie’s mood) but apparently, Jack, Kate, and Sayid decide they can be included in the suddenly new and prevalent conversation about the dead body problem they have.

“Those boars were looking to feed, we have to get rid of them,” Jack says, mouth turned down in a frown like he doesn’t like his own plan.

Charlie’s face scrunches up, “bury them? There’s a whole bunch in there.”

“Digging will be difficult without shovels,” Sayid adds, nodding off towards the area they’d buried the marshal, it had been hard, scooping sand with their hands for hours just to get him deep enough.

The rest of the dead are forced to roast in the practical dinner bell of a fuselage.

Jack looks even more uncomfortable with himself, long before he even utters his next words, “we’re not burying them. We need to burn them.”

“They’re people,” Kate almost cries, aghast.

Sayid pipes up again, a hint of resignation in his voice, “burning the remains, they deserve better than that.”

“There are  _ so _ many of them in that thing, too many to bury separately from what I saw last night. Frankly, I don’t think we have time to bury everyone before the boars come back because of the smell alone,” Ellie sighs, running a hand through her hair that she’d pulled down over the course of the morning.

Charlie leans back in his seat, folding his arms and planting one of his feet against the frame of a window on the piece of plane they sit around, “no time? Last I heard we were positively made of the stuff.”

She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, “the boars that were here were babies, which means there’s a sounder somewhere out there, maybe more than one. The only reason I was able to chase them away was because they thought I was bigger than them and didn’t see me beforehand, if they come back and we don’t see them, someone could get seriously hurt.“

“Not to mention that those people deserve better than getting eaten by wild animals,” Jack huffs, temper of his flaring just slightly, “because that’s what’s going to happen to them if we don’t do this. They’re gone and we’re not, we can’t let morality get in the way of survival on this one, we are on our fifth day and nobody’s come and we don’t know if anyone will,” he stands, roughly brushing down his trousers, “today people need to start collecting firewood, and by sundown, we’ll turn that fuselage into a furnace.”

With that, he stalks off and Ellie quickly follows his example, pulling knots out of her hair and leaving the other three to discuss what they need to. Overall it’s not like she wants to burn those people any more than the others do, any more than Jack probably wants to, but they really aren’t in any position to please everyone or to honour everyone’s religion that would take them just as long to figure out as it would to individually fulfil each and every one of their after-death plans. 

Not everyone gets the burial they want, or the one they deserve.

She rubs at her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on; she’d ask Jack for something but she thinks everyone needs an hour or two to cool off so maybe she’ll just throw herself in the ocean or find James and whine about it until he’s annoyed enough to find painkillers for her. 

Josh is off somewhere, she thinks he’s brooding after getting pissed at her last night for the boar stunt. She assumes he’s trying to give the silent treatment in an attempt to make her feel bad or apologise or something, or maybe he’s doing something rational for once and sitting by himself to cool off. She scoffs, unlikely. Why he thinks avoiding her is going to make her say sorry for her own choices she doesn’t know, it’s not like not seeing him is an unfamiliar occurrence, but he forgets these things.

There’s a commotion off towards the trees, sounds of a small but heated argument and the fact that people are fighting  _ already  _ is enough to make her want to punch both their lights out because, for fuck’s sake, no one is going to get anything done if they’re yelling at each other.

She makes her way over, pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt to chase away some of the growing pain. As she gets closer the voices get louder, and at this point it’s basically a shouting match between two of the men and, frankly, she’s not the least bit surprised about who it is.

“There’s other people here or don’t you give a crap?” Hurley identifies himself first, this disagreement clearly going on for far longer than she’d clocked onto it.

“Well if one of us wouldn’t eat more than his fair share...“ And there’s James, tactful as ever. 

They’re fighting over some bag that James has had in his little collection of stuff for a couple days now. Why Hurley wants it so desperately enough to start a fight over it is what she doesn’t know.

Hurley scoffs at the comment, “oh that’s bull and you know it. You’re not happy unless you’re screwing over everybody.”

Ellie manages to slide between some of the onlookers, shielding her eyes from the sun to look up at the two of them, “Sawyer what are you doing now?”

He only seems mildly offended that she asked him first, “getting harassed, Sunshine, what does it-“

“What’s going on?” Jack’s voice is louder against her ears than the arguing and she flinches away from it for just a second as he appears to be the good ol’ hero and stop the big scary men from fighting anymore.

“Jethro here’s hoarding the last of the peanuts,” Hurley says, sounding like that answers  _ anything _ .

“Oh my god,  _ Hurley _ , they’re fucking peanuts,” Ellie finds herself speaking before she means to- and, okay, she now has a read on what level this headache is.

“Yeah- but-“ he seems at a slight loss for words and even though she’s not looking at either of them now she can tell they’re both staring, she’s usually not so snippy. “Dudes, it’s the last of the food.”

It’s like there’s a sudden, deadly wave passing over everyone all at once. Last of the food means if they don’t find something, they’re all going to starve to death and that’s only if they have enough water to stop everyone from dehydrating first. There’s another thing behind the idea though, last of the food means they’ve been here too long, Jack mentioned it this morning but she isn’t quite sure if the idea hit her or has hit others at any point before now: no one’s come to get them, there’s the potential that no one’s  _ ever  _ coming to get them, and now they need to find a way to catch some more food.

“What?” Shannon’s voice cuts through the tension like a hot knife to butter, and suddenly everyone’s mumbling to the person next to them.

Jack starts trying to placate people, hands out as if in the next second a battle royale will start. Half of these people don’t have the guts to throw a punch, some of them don’t even know what to do with themselves unless someone gives them a direct-damn-order, let alone be able to take the initiative to kill someone else for a sliver of food. There’s plenty of things on the island they can find for food. It's a jungle, not the desert, there’ll be fruit trees in there somewhere not to mention the boars.

“We can find food,” Sayid says, verbalising her thoughts, “there are plenty of things on this island we can use for sustenance.”

James rolls his eyes, snatching his bag off of Hurley finally and folding his arms, leaning against the closest tree, “and how exactly are we going to find this  _ sustenance _ ?”

Something whizzes past her ear so fast she barely has a chance to take a breath, the next second there’s a knife embedded in the tree barely an inch away from James’ shoulder and everyone’s heads are spinning to look behind them at Locke who’s grinning like he didn’t almost slice through her ear.

“We hunt.”

Dramatic, good to know. He’s not wrong though, finding the boar is probably their best option if they want to feed everyone - unless someone’s vegetarian, which, probably not much choice for that right now anyway but Ellie’s sure she can find something for the exceptionally stubborn. 

Jack steps forward to pull the blade from the tree and inspect it while Kate eyes the older man, “how’d you get a knife on the plane?”

“Checked it.”

“You either have very good aim, or very bad aim,” Jack almost laughs, handing the knife back over, “and you want us to what? Hunt those boars?”

There’s a nod, “we know they’re on the island. Razorbacks, by the look of them.” He turns to look at her and then everybody else is and it takes a second for her to register people looking at her and realise he wants her added clarification.

“Right, yeah- they’re feral pigs-” at some point she’ll wonder how Locke knows any of this, but- “I said earlier, the ones that were here were babies - a hundred, hundred-fifty pound animals with a mother and a sounder. Mothers are usually two-fifty pounds and particularly aggressive.” She gives a little wave.

Locke goes on to add a few things about tusks and attack patterns, which she knows so doesn’t pay much attention to, “I figure it’ll take at least three of us to distract her long enough for me to flank one of the piglets, pin it, and slit its throat.”

James turns to Jack, eyebrow raised, “and you gave him his knife back?”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“Better than three of you wandering into the magic forest to bag a hunk of ham with nothing but a little bitty hunting knife? Hell no, best idea we’ve ever had.”

And of course, because Locke is apparently  _ Locke _ , he shows off a briefcase he’s been holding and places it on the ground, he flicks up the latches and opens it, spinning it around to showcase the thing full of different sized blades.  _ Okay _ . Everyone shares a bit of a look, equal amounts of worry, confusion, awe, and general  _ what the fuck _ -ness to each of them, Hurley leans down to whisper something in Charlie’s ear.

People, sort of, disperse after that, slowly but surely taking their steps away from Locke and his box of knives and either going back to whatever they were doing before, or wandering off to collect the wood Jack wants for the fuselage fire later.

Ellie lets out another sigh and rubs her forehead, there’s a light weight on her shoulder and she looks up at James.

“You know you act a lot more like you’re actually twins with Spitfire when you feel like shit.”

She stares at him, deadpan, “thanks.”

He snorts, pushing her head sideways like he used to do when she was being moody as a teenager, “my bag, under Ollie’s sweater.”

She swats his hand away but nods, starting on back to their little area while he goes off to where she assumes he’s hiding his ‘stash’ - he’s basically a squirrel, she doesn’t even know why he does it. 

She finds Josh back with their stuff, leaning back against the metal of their shelter piece with legs outstretched and ankles crossed with a notebook in his lap, sharp letters of ink scrawled across the page alongside some scrappy drawings. He taps a pen to his chin.

“Being useful, I see,” she says, startling him into slamming the notebook closed.

“Sorry for doing a personal thing for an hour or two,” he responds, snappy as always, “what are you doing?”

She drops onto her knees in front of their bags, unzipping James’ carry-on and digging through all his random shit until she comes to Ollie’s sweater at the bottom. It’s a grey colour with some quote she doesn’t recognise printed on the front, James has had it for a few years already, had it since Ellie graduated.

Closing her eyes, she sighs, trying not to think too hard about the state her uncle might be in right now. She reaches beneath it to find the little bottle of pills he’d refused to hand over to Jack, she swallows two dry and looks back to Josh.

“Taking those before I chew someone’s head off,” she throws the pill bottle back and shifts the bag back so she can grab her own, “and I’m going to see if Locke wants any more help with the boar hunt.”

He sits up quickly, “you’re going  _ in  _ there?”

“We need food, Josh. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve run out.”

“Yeah but there’s-“ he stops, apparently catching himself before he finishes his own sentence.

She raises an eyebrow, pulling some jeans from her bag as well as a fresh black shirt and jacket (well, one of James’ old flannels), “there’s what?”

“Nothing,” he glares for just a second, “there’s just whatever the hell has been making those noises the past few days. Are you really so stupid to go in there?”

Rolling her eyes, she bites her tongue and ignores him, taking her clothes and letting him simmer in his own anger before he can provoke her further before the painkillers kick in. As she changes she realises she should probably get the bandages to her burn changed when she gets back, they’re a little - a lot - dirty and she could do with Jack checking the state of it anyway, she could ask about the whole face-stitches situation too. 

She comes out from the cover she was behind and dumps the clothes back in her bag; before she heads over she decides to switch her trainers for her work boots: tan and bulky ankle boots better suited for the kind of environment past the tree line.

“Try not to be an asshole to anyone else while I’m gone.”

She can feel his glare without needing to see it, throwing a backpack she’d squished into her suitcase over her shoulder and darting across the beach to where Locke is, handing Michael a knife and sheath that he slides through his belt loops. Michael gives her a smile as she comes over, she returns it.

“I know you already have three people, but I wanted to ask if you wanted my help.”

Locke almost grins, “I was hoping you’d want to, didn’t want to ask what with the leg,” he gestures vaguely at the now-covered bandages, “we could do with your expertise.”

She waves off the concern, gathering her hair and tying it up in a high ponytail to keep it out of her face, “honestly it doesn’t hurt all that much anymore, just needs a bandage change.” 

He nods, crouching down and picking out a knife that’s smaller than his but slightly bigger than Michael’s - he thinks she’s more capable, noted. Kate’s coming over, blade already sheathed at her side, while Ellie’s buckling hers to her hip.

“Well then,” Locke snaps the case closed and leaves buries it amongst his things again, “let’s go hunting.”

Getting off that damn beach is the best thing to happen to her all day, maybe all week; the painkillers are kicking in and she’s far more in her element out here, taking in the environment that makes everything up and mentally keeping track of what she sees. The forest seems like a pretty habitable place for wild rabbits, so if the boar hunting proves more difficult than anticipated they can always resort to that; rabbits are a hell of a lot easier to make traps for too.

They get through a long patch of tall grass, the forest around them slowly starting to fade into a thicker, greener jungle. She notices something different about the dirt in their path and crouches down, Locke kneeling at her side and poking at it with his knife.

“You find something?” Kate asks, hands going to her hips.

“Ground’s rooted up,” Ellie replies, looking back at her and Michael, “boars dig to find most of their food.”

“Afterwards they generally wallow in the mud, rub up against trees,” Locke adds, pointing out some scoring on the trunk of the tree next to them, she whistles.

Michael stares at him, eyebrow raised as they straighten out, “you got a zoology degree too, man?”

“No,” he laughs, “I’m quite positive Ellie knows much more about all this than I do.”

She smiles, nudging his arm, “you’re not too shabby, could run me out of a job here.”

They continue on, Locke moving to lead the way while Ellie drops back to walk with Kate and Michael. They’re fully in the jungle now and she takes to looking out for fruit trees or any other plants that might be useful - she’s noticed the Korean woman, Sun, collecting plants closest to the tree line so maybe she can ask, well, write to ask for her help. 

Jack and the others might appreciate it if she, Locke and (hopefully) Sun take over worrying about food, they can figure out what’s available on the island and then Locke can lead hunting groups if necessary; Adrien and Max might be useful in creating traps, and she’s sure they’d like to help out with something important.

Kate drags her out of her thoughts, looking to Michael, “your son, how's he handling all of this?”

“A hell of a lot better than I am,” the man admits, rubbing the back of his neck. He turns and looks at Ellie on his other side, “he’s a big fan of animals, so, sorry if he ever bugs you with questions.”

She waves him off, “no need, I talk with kids at work all the time. If you ever need a break I can always occupy him for an hour or two.” He gives her a grateful look.

“You must be proud,” Kate adds, smiling, “he's a brave kid.”

“Yeah. I can't take credit for that,” Michael says, “I wasn't part of his life. ‘Til his mother passed away, two weeks ago. They were living in Sydney the past couple of years. I flew out last week, you know, to go get him. What were you two doing in Australia?”

Ahead of them, Locke makes a shushing noise, finger to his lips and pointing out more tusk marks on a tree. He makes a gesture at them and starts into a thicket, she follows first, lowering herself a little and making wider steps to keep her noise levels down; Kate follows behind her and Michael leads the rear. They’re silent for some moments, pulling out their knives at Locke’s signal and keeping a listen out; Locke makes more hand gestures, some she’s seen, others she hasn’t, and Michael doesn’t seem to know most either, piping up even as she hears grunting in the bushes.

A boar appears out of nowhere, pulling a gasp out of her. She sees Locke dodge one way, landing on his back, and she grabs Kate to fall the other, Kate landing on her front while Ellie hits her side. None of them are able to grab Michael and the boar tears towards him, knocking him down and making him scream: his leg’s been hit.

“Oh shit-“ she’s breathless, scrambling through the grass and ignoring the ache from her hand. She’s grazed her palm. 

Michael’s leg is bleeding, trousers torn and edges of the rip staining dark as the open wound leaks. Kate kneels at his other side, tearing a strip from the end of her shirt to tie around his leg just above the wound, she helps him sit up and Ellie turns to call out to Locke, still lying there frozen.

“John?” She calls, “he’s hurt, bad. Locke! Can you hear me?”

Kate places a hand on her shoulder, standing and crossing over to stand closer to the unresponsive man, “Locke?”

Locke finally moves, forcing his elbows underneath himself to sit up, “I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine, Helen, I just got the wind knocked out of me is all.”

Ellie throws Michael’s arm over her shoulders, ignoring the other two’s exchange in favour of getting him to his feet; she manages to get him up, wobbling slightly with his added weight and half a foot of height over her.

“Which way did that boar go?” Can Locke let the boar go?

“Michael's hurt. We have to get him back to camp,” Kate says, trying to emphasise the importance of getting back to Jack.

“Yeah, you take him back to camp. I'm going to get that boar.”

Ellie exchanges a worried glance with the other woman. She tries to offer to go with him, making a move to hand Michael’s weight to Kate but stops as he waves his hand in her direction; Michael needs her more, apparently, but Michael isn’t the one trying to look for aggressive boars by himself.

“You can’t go after that thing by yourself.”

This time he glares, “don't tell me what I can't do.” And then he’s leaving them.

They should have checked for fucking rabbits.

She and Kate are able to move Michael quite quickly with both of them supporting him; Kate manages to hold her knife in one hand, being on the side of Michael’s good leg and leaving Ellie to focus mostly on keeping him upright. They follow the path they travelled as best they can, backtracking through the jungle to where it slowly starts becoming coniferous forest again.

Kate stops at the edge of where the trees start to change, “hey, hey wait a minute. Rest here for a minute.”

They set Michael down against the closest tree and Ellie rolls her shoulder as Michael gives out a chuckle, “I thought the guy with the gimpy leg should be deciding when we rest.“

“Oh hey look,” she points up, noticing one of the trees at the side of their path, “bananas.”

Kate grins a little, looking up as she sheds her bag and top shirt, “perfect. You grab those and I’m going to climb this tree to attach this antenna,” she shows off a device Ellie’s positive Sayid made, “to try and boost the transceiver signal.”

Ellie tightens her bag straps instead of ditching it, tightening her ponytail along with them and looking up at the tree, “Sayid thinks that’ll get around the  _ block _ ?” 

Kate’s head whirls around, eyes wide enough for Ellie to see the question behind them, but not enough for Michael to notice, “he’s hoping,” Kate says, gaze flicking to Michael for just a second.

Ellie gives a little one-shoulder shrug and devilish smile.

“Uh...” Michael stutters, probably noticing the little conversation they’re having, “you two going to climb those?”

“Yeah. Don't worry. I've climbed a lot worse,” 

Ellie doesn’t doubt the other woman given her previous occupation, she too has climbed a lot worse than a twelve-foot tall banana plant, “this bad boy is just a big herb, I’ll be fine.” 

Michael looks unconvinced, but nods anyway, settling back against the tree and fiddling with the meagre bandages around his leg. She doesn’t bother watching Kate make her climb, figures she’ll be as fine as she says she’ll be, instead focusing on climbing the plant in front of her.

It doesn’t have the easiest structure to get around, but she reaches for the closest branch of sorts and hefts herself up, planting her shoes against the main body to give herself the least bit of traction. It isn’t exactly the most graceful way up, but it was a very understood thing between her, Cam, and Eric that her forte was man-made structures, not awkwardly shaped trees with not enough branches to simulate pipelines and drains.

Nonetheless, she manages to get up and clamber around to sit in the cross-section where the leaves spread out at the top, swinging her bag around to sit in her lap and steadying herself, she reaches out for the closest bunch with ripe fruit.

Then suddenly everything shakes and she barely manages to stop herself falling out of the tree like the antenna that tumbles out of Kate’s grip. The warbling, metallic noise it feels like they haven’t heard in days roars out from out in the jungle, she can’t see as far as she thinks Kate can, because she’s staring into the distance with wide eyes. Ellie realises it’s the direction Locke went. 

“Should we go after him?” She asks.

Kate scrambles back down the tree, picking up the half-broken antenna with a frown, “it’s too risky with Michael, we have to go back to the beach and hope he makes it back by himself.”

She’s right and Ellie hates it. Sure, Locke made the choice to go after the boar by himself, it’s still a stupid ass decision, but leaving him out there for whatever that thing is to get to him feels wrong. She sighs, throwing half of one of the banana bunches in her bag since it’s the best she can grab; she returns it to her back and drops down to the ground, thankfully not rolling her ankle or anything.

The two of them lift Michael onto his feet again and start back towards the beach.

They break back through the tree line eventually, she’d lost track of time after the boar attack, barely having time to figure it out again so getting back to camp feels rejuvenating. 

The first to see them, Hurley comes running over, “so, like, what happened out there?”

Walt calls out, appearing and bolting over to his dad. Michael wobbles a little, catching him around the shoulders in a small hug, “hey, hey!”

The boy pretty much bombards the man with questions about what happened, talking a mile a minute even between James appearing with a flirt that only half leaves his mouth before Kate shuts it down. 

“So was it like a boar fight?”

Before Michael can respond, Ellie chimes in, grinning at the ten-year-old, “oh, kid, your dad did great out there, very tough. Faced that boar head-on.”

He laughs, but eventually his eyebrows crinkle and he looks around, back the way they came, “so, um, where’s Mr Locke?”

Kate walks away without answering, leaving Ellie to take a panicked second to keep Michael on his feet, almost toppling sideways had Walt not tugged on his dad’s other arm.

She sighs, “thanks... and Locke? After your dad got hurt he wanted to go after the boar but we haven’t seen him since.”

“Is he dead?”

“He looks like he can handle himself.” She’d like to hope he can anyway. She avoids mentioning the sounds, it seems nobody down here heard them and she’d rather not stir up any unnecessary fear.

Michael runs his hand over Walt’s head, “now why don’t you help me over to Jack, little man.”

With a nod the two of them head off, Michael putting a little too much pressure on his bad leg than he should, but Ellie can see he’s trying not to put as much weight on Walt as he did her. Hurley turns to go but she grabs his arm, swinging her bag from her shoulder and opening it up.

“Oh my god, you  _ did  _ bring food!” The excitement in his voice is palpable.

She passes the bag over, “I could only grab a little but I roughly know where the tree is, and if there’s one of those then there’s probably more,” she says, reaching in and breaking three away from a bunch, “there should, hopefully, be enough for one per person at the moment. Any spare I say save for the people who desperately need them for now.”

She breaks the bananas apart, passing one to Hurley as he nods and runs off, then turning to smile at James as he comes to greet her. She hands him the fruit and pats his arm, “you can shoot your shot with Kate tomorrow, bud.”

“Very funny,” he shoots back, leaning down to plant his arm on her head, “you play nice with your little huntin’ group?”

“I did,” she doesn’t bother pushing at his arm, instead peeling her banana and enjoying the first bit of food she’s eaten in hours, “you and Josh been playing nice with everyone else?”

He waves his other hand and looks off towards where Claire is, she looks like she’s reading through a bunch of wallets and papers, “you could say that. Folks around here are holdin’ some memorial service for all the fuselage people.”

“That sounds nice.”

Later she’ll see Locke, back and alive, and she’ll breathe a sigh of relief bigger than the size of her lungs; he’ll have caught the boar and there’ll be some more food. She’ll leave Jack alone for the rest of the day, seeing his frazzled state and allowing him some time after Michael to not have to be a doctor; she knows she can survive another day (though that doesn’t stop James from pressing a wet rag onto the graze on her hand when he sees it).

At sundown the fuselage is set alight, it’s a blaze against the darkening sky and people gather around in front of it with Claire standing at the head of the group. Papers, passports and travel plans are gathered in her arms, and amidst the bonfire, she reads names and what little she knows of people based on what she’s gathered all day.

It’s a nice service, as respectful as they can give to the people they lost. There are organ donors, some who were going to get married, some who hadn’t travelled much, some who had books and DVDs to return, some they only had a name and seat number for. 

In that fire simply burns people.

Ellie stands with James at one side and Sayid on the other, Josh lost amongst the crowd near Ethan. They watch the beacon burn, ashes floating up like fireflies next to the stars, floating up as if they’re the souls of the dead, disappearing into the night and, in a way, closing out the story of the crash... everything after this is something new, something unknown.

She isn’t sure she’s entirely prepared for what’s to come, but she knows she’s going to provide every little bit of help she can.


	7. Day 6: Live Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me ? Actually updating a week after the last one ? Unbelievable.
> 
> Here ya go, y'all

**27th September 2004**

_ Max _

After the service last night and the time spent clearing away the ashes left over, the last thing he wants to be doing today is pushing a cross made of tree branches into the sand next to the marshal’s.

A woman named Joanna had drowned this morning, went swimming and got caught in some riptide that Boone had aimed to save her from. Boone ended up having to get dragged out of the ocean by Josh when Jack had jumped in and tried to save her too. They never found her body.

Apparently she was never supposed to be on their flight but got an ear infection scuba diving off the barrier reef; a doctor had grounded her and she ended up with them. Max had never really spoken to her, they’d exchanged a couple of words here and there, shared names and whatnot, but otherwise, they were strangers, and now they always will be.

The cross in the sand is simply a marker, a memory for an empty grave. Max feels weird being the one to place it, the one to hang a pendant someone had found in Joanna’s luggage over it, but no one else knew her, and the people she’d been associating with were mostly folks who are still grieving over loved ones lost in the initial crash. 

Nonetheless, he adjusts the marker as it shifts a little, trying to keep it standing upright before straightening out and dusting sand from his jeans. The small graveyard they’ve set up is in one corner of the beach, closer to where the sand morphs to dirt; he’s sure he isn’t the first that had hoped there wouldn’t be more than one cross out here.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be the happy one. Quit frowning.”

He turns. Ellie’s standing just at the little entrance to the area, dressed in a black-sleeved baseball tee and dungarees with the ends rolled up, her hair is thrown up in a quick bun with spirals of hair in front of her ears. 

He leans on one leg and runs a hand through his hair, “thought you’d still be fawning over your brother,” he says. 

After Josh had dragged Boone out of the water, Ellie had thrown a towel over the two of them and berated her twin (who, Max has discovered, is three hours younger than her) and didn’t leave him alone until, well, now.

She laughs a little, “yeah, well, he wanted to go make sure Boone was okay so I left him to it.”

He makes a small noise of acknowledgement, sliding down the slight incline of sand and coming to her side; she’s small, at least to him, but she’d probably knock him on his ass if he said anything. Monica’s about her height, and hell if  _ she  _ hasn’t all but kicked his ass. 

They start on back to the main camp, Vincent galloping past them in pursuit of a tennis ball, and Max can see Shannon arguing with Sawyer, and Adrien sorting through clothes with Claire and Kate. As Ellie had mentioned, Josh is sat with Boone looking out at the ocean, he thinks they’re talking but they also seem like the guys to brood and somehow sort their feelings out without a word; he knows Boone feels bad about not being able to save Joanna, he’s a certified lifeguard and everything, but he hopes the guy knows there probably wasn’t anything any of them could have done.

“D’you think I’ll be able to get within ten feet of Sun at some point?” Ellie asks all of a sudden, stopping in her tracks and planting her hands on her hips.

He looks down then up, across the beach where the Korean couple is, “uh... why?”

“I wanna ask her about plants.”

“And you won’t be able to get within ten feet of her because?” He raises an eyebrow, dragging out the last word as if that’ll make him figure it out before she answers.

“Cause her husband is A+ on the protective scale,” she fiddles with her glasses and pats down her pockets for something, continuing her rambling, “which isn’t a bad thing, like, at all, go him for keeping his wife safe while this is happening and everything. But I just really want to see if I can  _ maybe _ remember any fucking Korean my ex-girlfriend taught me years ago if only so I can write it and show her because, I know for a fact, that my pronunciation is abysmal and it would be a stain on Camilla’s memory if I even  _ tried _ -“

Max has to laugh, even more so when she so abruptly stops and turns a light shade of pink, “ex-girlfriend, huh?”

She takes a second, but does nod, “we- ah- we ended things a long time ago.”

He shoves his hands in his front pockets and smirks a little, “you usually date girls?” Despite being older than him he’s still able to tease her like he does his sisters, and he kind of likes that about her.

“I just like who I like, I don’t really care.”

“Adrien’s the same,” he says, smiling properly when she looks up again, “me though? Hundred-percent a dick kinda guy.”

They make an attempt to stifle laughter between coughs and hands for the sake of not looking like assholes to the other survivors more affected by what happened earlier; humour seems to be how a lot of them are coping though, or at least how a lot of them are starting to.

“Hey! You guys! Jack!”

They turn, Jack appearing next to them looking particularly worn down and ragged. It’s Hurley who called, standing over by the tree line with Charlie and an open suitcase, he waves them over - most likely wanting Jack and not them, but Ellie starts following and Max does too, not exactly wanting to stand around by himself like a dumbass.

“Whoa,” Hurley looks concerned as they wander over, looking at Jack and voicing just what they’re all probably thinking in that moment, “you look tired, brother.”

Jack simply waves him off, dragging a hand down his face as if that’s going to run away the dark circles under his eyes, “I'm fine. What's up?”

Charlie shifts, moving out of the way so they can see what’s in the suitcase: it’s their water supply, their extremely dwindling water supply. Max realises it hasn’t rained in a while.

“That’s  _ it _ ?” He asks, failing to keep the panic out of his voice.

Charlie nods, “that’s it.”

Ellie’s mouth turns down into a frown, she crosses her arms, “how many?”

“Eighteen.”

Yikes. That is... not enough.

Hurley rubs the back of his neck, “people just kind of took what they needed because we were supposed to be rescued... but we weren't.” The  _ and might not be _ goes unsaid but Max can tell they’re all thinking it.

“Even if we divided it up, split the bottles in half it wouldn't be enough for forty-seven people,” Charlie says, chewing on his thumbnail.

“Forty-six,” Jack all but hisses, making Ellie look up at him, hard frown softening. Max looks over too and he... he just looks like a dead guy walking at this point, “there’s forty-six of us now.”

“Dude, people are gonna flip if they find out about this,” Hurley looks at where the rest of camp is, then back at the water, “maybe we can find one of those water finding sticks?”

Max raises an eyebrow, “you mean a dowsing rod?”

He’s ignored. Instead, Charlie starts prattling on too, “what should we do with the stuff we’ve got?”

“I don’t know,” Jack huffs.

Charlie continues on, his voice mingling with Hurley’s as the other man goes on about trying to get Vincent to find water.

“We should put it in the tent, yeah? Probably better if no one knows how little is left - we can’t tell the others we’re running low. That way you can ration it. Then you can decide what-“

“I’m not deciding anything!”

Jack walks away, his outburst shocking silence into the two rambling men before them. Max couldn’t handle the noise, frankly, so he doesn’t even want to take a guess as to what’s going on in Jack’s tired, probably foggy, head right now. He watches him go, concern, he’s sure, contorting his features in the same way it pulls at Ellie’s.

She sighs, “ _ guys _ ,” she turns back to them, “I don’t think he’s slept properly since I got him to pass out  _ three days ago _ , dropping all of this on him like he’s our ringleader probably isn’t making him feel any better.”

Hurley’s eyes flick in the direction the doctor had gone, “but, like, he is our leader.”

“But we haven’t even asked him if he wants to be.”

She turns and heads across the beach again, not following Jack but she seems to be making a beeline for Kate (who’s still with Claire and Adrien). 

Max thinks she’s right, they haven’t asked Jack if he wants to be their leader, they’ve all just been looking to him for answers because he’s the only doctor in their midst. Frankly, Max thinks they’ve all unintentionally created a small ring of leaders by dropping the most important jobs onto people: Sayid with the transmission equipment, Locke with the hunting, and Kate as Jack’s apparent right-hand - he’s somewhat sure Ellie fits in there somewhere, maybe as emotional support for the lot of them, she’s light and easy to talk to, good with people.

“Okay,” he runs a hand through his hair and gestures between Hurley, Charlie, and the suitcase of water, “let’s get that in the infirmary, out of the way and we can try and figure out what to do about it later. We can only hope we’ll be able to collect some more rain soon, but otherwise, we need to find a fresh water source in the next day or two.” 

The two nod, closing up the case and hefting it up to follow him to the one tent they have right now. Despite the man dying three days ago, entering the infirmary without seeing the marshal there feels a little strange, it might just be the memory of him, lying in the sand and dying, or it might just be because Max hasn’t gotten himself hurt since the crash and so the only impression he has of this tent is… well,  _ that _ .

Nonetheless, he, Charlie, and Hurley settle the water case in the back of the tent near the one with what’s left of their medicine in. The shade makes things cool, and he didn’t realise he needed this until about point-two seconds ago; he drops his weight onto the makeshift bed, being reminded of the stiffness of the plane seats (Adrien still thinks it’s a miracle he can sleep on them).

“You alright?” Charlie asks.

He gives a thumbs-up, arms dropping over his eyes afterwards, “yep, just, really need a nap in the shade.”

He hears Hurley laugh, “I feel that, dude. Honestly, go for it, I don’t think anything’s gonna desperately need your help anytime soon.”

A laugh escapes him too and the arm over his eyes moves to pillow his head, “I will take it.”

He manages to fall asleep a little after they leave.

He’s jolted awake who knows how much later when someone yells his name; it’s Walt, panting at the infirmary entrance.

“The pregnant lady collapsed-“

“What!?”

He scrambles up, rushing to move the tarp out of the way. Already on their way over, Adrien and Charlie have Claire’s arms over their shoulders, helping her along with Michael and Kate at their sides and Ellie at Claire’s back.

“What happened?” He asks, managing to keep his panic down as he helps them lower her onto the makeshift bed he just got up from.

Charlie looks just as worried as he feels, situating himself on one side of her, “she just dropped.”

Kate settles on the other while Ellie kneels down by her head to place a hand against her skin, she winces. Adrien comes to stand next to Max in the corner while Michael observes everything at the opening with his arms around Walt’s shoulders.

Kate starts trying to talk to her while Ellie presses her hands - probably cold - against her cheeks. It’s a few tense moments, the three surrounding her talking softly and trying to get any reaction, they do, eventually, a small hum and question that sends a ripple of relieved sighs through the seven people surrounding her.

“You passed out. Just take it easy, okay?” Kate says, smiling gently before she turns to Charlie, “she needs water.”

He goes looking immediately, but Max notices the case is  _ empty _ and his breath catches again. Charlie sends him a frantic look and he feels Adrien squeeze his arm, the musician mouths a question at him and Max’s eyes are wide as he shakes his head and shrugs.

Charlie’s mouth drops open slightly, a hand running roughly through his hair, “the water's gone. Someone stole it.”

Michael’s head shoots over, “how could someone steal it!? Max was in here-“

“Yeah, napping! I was getting hot out there, man,” he pipes up, defending himself. He’s just as surprised though. Someone actively came in while he was asleep and stole the entire case from under his nose and without anybody outside seeing- Jesus he feels like an idiot.

“Alright!” Ellie exclaims, whispering a quick apology when Claire flinches, “I’m stopping everyone before this devolves into an argument, okay? We focus on Claire. Now, there’s a lot of people in here which is only going to make this place hotter,” she says, brushing some of Claire’s hair off her forehead, “without water, the best we can do is just try and cool her down, so I need someone to go and dip a shirt or something in the ocean and be on hand to run back and forth.”

Charlie’s too preoccupied sitting at Claire’s side again to be of any use, but Adrien throws his hand up and disappears the second she nods at him. 

Kate places a hand on Ellie’s shoulder, “I can ask a few people about the water supply, everybody else will just need to keep the group calm and look out for Jack. I’ll go and see if Sayid or Locke can go looking for him.” They share a nod and then Kate disappears back towards the beach.

Max wonders faintly, as he watches Ellie direct Michael and Walt to look out for anybody with water, that maybe he’d been wrong about her, she’s emotional support for sure - just the way she’s able to keep everybody calm is a miracle - but there’s a leader in there somewhere, someone with experience in things Max and the others may not have any idea about. He’s thankful that at least if Jack goes missing again, Kate and Ellie definitely seem like the best options to be leaders in his place, they work well together.

He opts himself in the keep an eye out for water too, emptying the tent further and pressing a quick kiss to Adrien’s cheek as they pass each other. He can occupy himself for a bit, he’s sure of that, he knows Adrien and Claire have a nice friendship going on, so he’s not about to force his boyfriend away from her when she’s in need; besides, Shannon is, for sure, not going to say no if he goes and sits with her, maybe she’s seen something that’ll help.

Shannon hasn’t, but she’s helpful in keeping any stress from rolling off him like the ocean she spends several hours sat deciding if she wants to swim in or not. He keeps himself away from all the affairs going on with Jack gone, resigning himself into being some meaningless extra for the day because, holy fuck, every time he’s gotten himself involved it’s been exhausting. He sees Adrien run back and forth from the infirmary to the ocean and back every so often (generally every hour but it differs), though at some point he and Shannon get into some detailed conversation about their favourite drinks - because fuck legal drinking ages, you know - and she’s explaining to him the intricacies of her preferred flavours.

The hours trundle along, its mostly quiet, little movement, little noise... and then there’s a commotion across the beach.

“Leave him alone!” It’s Jack, suddenly appearing after who knows how many damn hours away. He looks more awake, more alert, something about him is different, being away has done something good for him.

Max didn’t notice, but the ‘him’ that Jack defended turns out to be Boone, kneeling on the sand with half the  _ hunt for water _ team surrounding him. At the shouting most people are collecting like they always do, drawn to the noise with an interest in whatever the hell is happening; he sees Adrien and Ellie come out of the infirmary together while he comes over with Shannon at his side. 

“It's been six days and we're all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come,” Jack starts, standing at the head of the gathering, “but what if they don't? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out. A woman died this morning just going for a swim and he tried to save her, and now you're about to crucify him?” He gestures to Boone again, helping him to his feet and sending a look Max can’t quite translate across the group, “we can't do this. Every man for himself is not going to work. It's time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we're going to survive here. Now, I found water. Fresh water, up in the valley. I'll take a group in at first light. If you don't wanna come then find another way to contribute. Last week most of us were strangers, but we're all here now. And god knows how long we're going to be here. But if we can't live together, we're going to die alone.”

Later Max will find out it was Boone who stole the water, that Charlie’s temper was getting the better of him and the others that were with him didn’t do much to control him until Jack appeared. He won’t really be able to find it in himself to be mad, everyone is trying to find their role in the group and this situation, while Boone went about it wrong, was just that. So during the evening, he sits with Shannon and Boone and they share one of the few remaining bottles of water while Adrien and Ellie help Jack with Claire.

It’s one of the few evenings he stays up past most people, usually one of the first to settle down, but with Adrien not there he has an unintentional seed of worry in his gut. Out of the three of them sat there, Shannon falls asleep first, and Boone wanders off to splash some seawater on his face before he comes back - though Max notices Sawyer intercept him before he does so. 

They talk, about what isn’t really important, it’s not really anything aside from mutual boredom and minor self-loathing at not doing much. But the night could be worse, the noises could come back or people could be arguing, but they don’t and they’re not and frankly Max can only really ask for that anymore.

He does manage to fall asleep, though it’s definitely far later than usual.


	8. Day 7: Rising Sun

**28th September 2004**

_ Ellie _

Today is water hunting day, Jack picks his people and they either agree or disagree to going; Kate, of course, tags along, as do Charlie and Locke, and, while she ends up being asked, Ellie manages to explain to Jack that she’s going to try and talk to Sun today, so she can’t go. 

It’s a good thing he agrees that it’s generally a good idea, thankfully not prying too much on how she plans to go about it (it’s nice to feel trusted), though he does also ask her to keep an eye on everyone else for him along with Sayid, be a pseudo-leader, which sounds about as stressful as she imagines it’ll be. He makes sure she plans to keep a closer eye on Claire who’s still recovering from her unfortunate mishap yesterday and is currently under the watchful care of Adrien and Max - so, by association, Boone and Shannon too - and she tries to quell all of his worries before he takes his little group and disappears into the forest for the day.

Since Sayid has the same job as her today, she decides it’s probably smart to talk to him, make sure they’re on the same page, that sort of thing. It doesn’t take a miracle to find him, he’s tucked away where he usually is in his little workspace, messing with all of his transceiver equipment and, surprisingly, having James as his only company. James, who is sitting in one of the few scattered plane seats with his legs thrown over the armrests and a lightly-water-damaged book in hand.

“There a reason you keep working on a thing that won’t do anything?” She asks, getting his attention and settling herself into the sand next to him, resting her elbows on a clear section of his workspace.

He puts the equipment down and spares her a glance, “because I sort of have to look like I’m doing something for everyone who doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“S’cause there’s no one to use his new found leader-y powers on,” James adds on, shifting his book only slightly to smirk at her.

She gives him a look but he goes back to squinting at pages in the sunlight before it can really do anything. She turns back to Sayid, “speaking of, I wanted to check in and make sure we know what we’re doing today.”

He nods, “good, that’s smart.” She watches him clear away more of his equipment into bags to mimic her elbows-on-the-makeshift-table position, “what did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’m planning on trying to talk to Sun today - the Korean woman - and get an idea of her whole plant situation, so I’m going to be on one side of the beach and if you’re staying here then that settles us in good positions to watch everyone.”

He nods, though, a look of concern washes over him when he looks over at James and then Josh over by the sea. She’s almost convinced he’s actually worried about watching them until he speaks, a melodramatic hint in his words, “you’re really going to leave me with your ruffians?”

She places her hand over her heart, mimicking his slightly dramatic delivery, “I’m sorry, you’re stuck with both, but I know you have it in you to babysit like I do.”

James snorts from where he sits, amused, and she and Sayid share playful smiles before a flash goes off. Lo and behold, Max is there, bouncing on his heels and grinning as he plucks a new picture from his camera.

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching Claire?” She narrows her eyes at him, smiling lightly and settling a fist on her hip.

Max lets out a little laugh, adding the new picture to the plethora he’s collecting in a little diary he either had already or found recently, “yeah, but, she wanted to know what was going on and Adrien is being super protective.”

Sayid chuckles, “so you’re collecting intel for her.”

“Listen, we’re trying to entertain ourselves,” as if to prove a point he turns and gets a picture of James who flips him off without looking up from his book (a photo of his essence, really), “we’re treating this like reality tv, it’s all we have!”

She rolls her eyes, smile not leaving even when she stands and brushes the sand off her dungarees, “uh huh, well, I’m going to go talk to Sun, so, please don’t kill each other: Sayid’s in charge.”

She hears a couple of dramatic groans as she wanders away and manages to stifle her laughter while she’s still in range for them to see. She crosses the beach and spots Sun working with some plants on a tarp close to the tree line. 

“Okay,” she mutters to herself, plucking her little notebook and a pen from where she’d put them in the front pocket of her dungarees this morning, “you got this, just... make your writing legible and- uh- don’t piss off the husband.”

She takes a couple uncertain steps forwards, waving shyly when the other woman looks up; Sun offers a just as shy smile and greets her, head tilting when Ellie lowers onto her knees and scribbles onto the back page of her notebook. She makes a bit of a face, the writing isn’t... perfect, but she thinks Sun should be able to read it.

When she turns it around Sun gives a noise of surprised acknowledgement but smiles so genuinely that Ellie almost feels bad for not having said - well, written - anything sooner. Only speaking a language nobody but one (two, technically) person in the group speaks must be hard, must feel isolating among other things.

They share a few quiet words - a few quiet scribbles - and Sun’s mood seems to brighten with every little sentence, every little joke. At some point Ellie sees Jin off to the side, watching them, and she offers him a smile (that Sun throws his way too when she sees), he nods in return and suddenly he doesn’t seem so intimidating. 

Until his expression changes.

He isn’t looking at them anymore, no, the fire in his eyes is directed to something behind them and he stomps through some of the plants between her and Sun in a beeline for where Michael and Walt are.

Sun calls after him, asking what’s wrong but before either of them manage to get up, Jin is running up and tackling Michael to the ground, throwing swift punches at anywhere he can hit.

“Stop! Hey stop!” Walt rushes up, yelling alongside Sun’s frantic screams and Ellie’s just as panicked shouting. All it achieves is landing Walt on his ass and sending him scrambling to Ellie’s side.

“Get off of him, please! Stop! Stop!” Walt’s begging, begging Jin who can’t even understand him and begging Sun who probably can’t do anything and his hands are gripping so tight to her pant-leg she can feel the pull on her shoulder.

She pries the boy’s hands off her and runs forward, yelling at the Korean man again. She grabs at his arm and she can’t dodge when it reels back and slams into her nose before hitting Michael again; she stumbles back, she has to, eyes scrunching closed and watering as she feels blood drip from her nostrils. Jin throws Michael towards the water, murder in his eyes, and she panics, surging forward again and thanking every experience she’s ever had for being able to twist his arms back behind him and hook her foot around the ankle he favours. 

They both tumble, no means of breaking their fall, and she sets her knees on arms that start to move, one hand pushing moderately on the back of his neck and the other pressing full weight between his shoulder blades. Whether it’s because she shocked him out of his stupor or what, he doesn’t struggle especially when Sun cries out again. He isn’t calm by any means, Ellie can feel angry vibrations beneath her and the smear of her blood on the back of his shirt grows ever bigger as she does nothing to stop the stream of blood from dripping down her chin.

“Michael,” she calls, voice nasally and breathless, “are you okay?”

She hears him move, not daring to take her eyes away from Jin in case he tries to throw her off. Walt makes a noise, calls to his dad, and presumably runs to help Michael up. 

Ellie spits blood into the sand next to them, the metallic on her teeth and tongue making her feel nauseous and dizzy. 

“I’m- I’m alright-  _ Jesus _ ,“ he’s panting, pained, panicked, “are you- are you okay?”

Michael’s voice seems to snap the thin chord of control Jin had, and in a second she’s on her back almost choking on sand and blood and he’s getting tackled by two newcomers: Sayid and James.

There’s shouting, scuffling, then a click and she hauls herself into a sitting position to see Jin being handcuffed to some kind of bar from the plane. He’s still struggling, and then Sun’s in her sight pressing a rag to the bottom half of her face, she’s fine, but lets Sun help out anyway.

“What happened?” Sayid asks finally, turning away from a now-secured Jin to survey the rest of them.

Ellie can’t even imagine what a sight the lot of them are: Walt half holding up Michael’s weight again, barely two days after the boar incident, and her and Sun just in the sand with an increasingly red cloth between them. 

Even with all of this, her one hope is Josh is still oblivious, she cannot be dealing with him being an asshole right now, and she certainly doesn’t want him trying to fight Jin who can’t hit back. 

Nonetheless, Michael, still clinging to Walt, answers after several minutes of each party staring at each other, “I was walking the beach, with my son, and he jumped me. I didn’t do anything.”

Sayid doesn’t look convinced, which is valid given it was such a sudden shift in Jin’s mood, from outside it definitely could look like Michael did something, but... yeah, he didn’t. He doesn’t say anything though, instead moving to the more important task of dealing with injuries; he hurries off to the infirmary for some supplies, leaving James their primary ‘bodyguard’ in this situation.

The man left behind crouches in front of her first, Sun giving a tight smile to her before leaving her with the cloth and going to her husband. Ellie sniffs, the overflow finally stopping, and looks at the red dried on her hands as she pulls them and the freshly-red cloth away from her face; James hisses, fingers coming to her chin to tilt her face a little.

“It’s not broken, I’m fine,” she says, waiting for him to let go before spitting into the sand again, “you know I bleed dramatically.”

He hums, reaching into his pocket and brandishing a packet of tissues like they’re gold, “doesn’t mean I can’t be concerned, Sunshine. He hit anywhere else?” The question is accompanied by him scrubbing the stains from her hands like she’s a teenager coming out of her first fist fight again.

“No, he wasn’t really aiming for me in the first place.”

When Sayid comes back he hands her a water bottle, with a concerned glance at the drying blood, before tending primarily to Michael. She sloshes some of the liquid in her mouth, getting the copper taste out before actually taking a swallowable sip. She runs a slightly cleaner hand through her hair to pull it down, twisting in the sand to use James as a back rest; he rests his chin on top of her head.

She watches Sayid work on dabbing at the bruises and blood on Michael’s face, asking him again just what happened. The father’s face comforts in annoyance as he starts repeating his point, gesturing at her and the tissue she holds to her face just in case to articulate his point of not doing anything wrong. 

She waves when they look at her just because she can.

“Surely there must be something you're not telling us.” Sayid’s voice is twinged with suspicion and disbelief.

Michael simply rolls his eyes, “surely? Where you from, man?”

She sighs, feeling the argument ready to fly in from a mile off and really not having the energy to try and stifle it before it begins.

“Tikrit. Iraq.”

“Okay. I don't know how it is in Iraq, but in the United States of America where I'm from, Korean people don't like black people. Did you know that?” Jin shouts something across at them but the conversation moves on so fast she can’t catch it properly, “so maybe you ought to talk to him!”

Sun says something that takes Ellie’s brain a second to translate- she thinks it was something about a clock? Clock... no, watch maybe. She sits up, looking back at Sun’s worried eyes and about ready to pipe up and clarify but Sayid yells first.

“The cuffs stay on!”

James tenses behind her, grumbling in return, “a little louder, Omar. Maybe then she'll understand you.”

Hurley wanders over then, looking both sheepish and concerned as he asks, “guys, that Chinese dude is going to get pretty crispy out here. How long are you going to keep him tied down like that?”

“He’s Korean,” she says before anybody else can answer him.

Sayid nods though provides no further input besides, “he tried to kill Michael. We all saw it. The cuffs stay on until we know why.”

She squeaks suddenly, hoisted up from under her arms by James who throws an arm over her shoulders and leads her away from the Korean pair with the others. She feels bad leaving Sun without figuring this all out (she also feels bad about leaving Jin in the sun but he elbowed her nose so she gets an hour to still be mad at him for that), but she imagines the others want everything to cool off however much it can before it starts to get solved.

Plus, she realises she should probably change, looking down to see her t-shirt and dungarees: both a bit bloody. Damn. 

She sighs, hands patting slightly at her greasy hair that she really wants to wash with something that’s not sea water. James gives her a little squeeze and gives a less-than-enthusiastic goodbye to their entourage as they turn and wander over to their little camp; Josh is there as he normally is, but for a few moments he’s accompanied by Ethan and his open notebook, a flash of polaroids catches her eye. The second they see the two approaching, both variables disappear and Ethan’s off to occupy himself however he does during the day. 

“What happened to you?!” Josh immediately exclaims when he sees her, eyes focusing in on the little lines of blood on her clothes.

She groans a little, freeing herself from under James’ arm - he promptly throws himself amongst their bags and starts reading a book again - and rubbing the back of her neck, “I stopped Jin from killing Michael, I’m fine.”

“So that’s Michael’s blood?”

“Yeah, Hotshot, it is,” James says, voice not exactly sharp, but not butter-knife dull either, “but when her nose bruises later from tackling a guy twice her size, don’t have a hissy fit, for the sake of us all.”

Josh glares, looking unconvinced. Any other time - or if Ellie had been the one to say it - he probably would have argued further, instead, he lets out a little, “alright,” and flops down next to James and grab his own book, like, literally his own book that has his pen name on it and everything.

She actually laughs seeing it, “ego, much?”

He sticks his tongue out at her and turns a page loudly, “more like judging my past work.”

She was never good at much creatively, as fraternal twins it was somewhat expected that they excel in opposite things and Josh fulfilled the open spot as ‘creatively smart’ long before Ellie had ever decided what she wanted to do. She’s the science-y, athletic one, doing dance classes for about fourteen years and then when she gave that up she put those skills elsewhere after a while. So with Josh having several successful novels (that, yes, did get published because of what happened to him but he writes really well nonetheless), the most notorious things Ellie could really be known for are things she keeps unassociated with her for a reason.

She stretches out, realising that her still-injured leg hurts a lot more after her little stunt than she’d like it too; and then she realises that she’s had stitches in her face for two days longer than she should. James throws some fabric her way and she doesn’t bother checking what it is before going to her little point of cover and changing into an old, slightly torn at the ends, pair of shorts of hers and a too-big Driveshaft t-shirt that has to be Josh’s; she tucks the excess fabric into the shorts and accepts that she’s going to have to deal with the collar slipping off one shoulder slightly.

The bandage on her leg is visible once again, dirty and fraying, and she can see the difference in her skin tone as most of her has tanned just slightly after days under the sun. She swings back around and dumps her other clothes back amongst her mess of things and prances off to decide what exactly she should do until she thinks it’s good to talk to Sun, or until Jack gets back.

“I want that back!” Josh calls after her.

“No promises!” 

Unsurprisingly, there isn’t exactly much to do and she gets bored quickly, not in the mood to go back and bother her boys and not totally sure if anybody else would want to occupy her. 

So, she aims to go back and finish this  _ Jin vs Michael _ debacle, aims being the key word, the first time she tried to go over, Max had run over with a genuine issue involving Adrien and a particularly persistent crab, but after that different people (mostly from the abundance she doesn’t regularly talk to) continue to come up to her with little minuscule problems they can absolutely deal with themselves given they’re all bloody adults but whatever. If these people want to be headless chickens with Jack off camp they can be, but she helps because she figures if she doesn’t no one else will even if none of these issues seem genuine but, whatever, it gives her something to do even if it ticks her off the more they show up.

She doesn’t even make it back on track to the pair still sitting there before her next interruption, though this one is far more worth it than the last few.

“I see you’re making use of your time.” She spins, smiling as Jack approaches.

“Oh thank god you guys are back,” she laughs a little, hand over her heart, “how’d it go?”

He nods, looking satisfied, “it was good, it looks pretty safe over there,” there’s a pause, he’s mulling something over before he speaks again, “we’re a little overdo for a follow-up on those injuries of yours, c’mon.”

She doesn’t get much of a say, watching him walk past her before joining him at his side, her leg protests slightly and she figures it's a good thing he didn’t give her a choice. The infirmary is thankfully empty when they enter, both for her personal dignity and because it means no one’s dying right now.

He gestures for her to sit, though she’s already moving by the time he does it, tucking one leg under herself and stretching the other out to lean back on her hands. 

She watches him skim through the bag of medical supplies before he settles in front of her, “so I did hear about what happened today.”

She groans a little, smiling, and tilting her face to let him get a look at the stitches there, “I’m assuming Sayid told you?” He nods and she tries to ignore the sensation of the threads being cut, “well we handled it as best we could.”

He doesn’t say anything, attention drawn primarily to making sure he gets his job done as well as he can. When all the threads are removed, he runs his thumb over the wound and makes a noncommittal noise

“That should be fine, but with the stitches being what they were I’d still be careful,” the look he gives her makes her predict exactly what he’s about to say, “and that means no fighting where your face could get hit.”

“Oh my god,” she rolls her eyes, reaching her own hand up to run along the soon-to-be scar, “first of all, he elbowed me in the nose by accident because he was punching Michael, he wasn’t directly aiming for me.”

The look is still there but he shifts back to grimace at the dirty bandage around her leg, “do you know what it was about?”

“I have an idea,” she says, grimacing just as much as him as he reveals the half-healed burn, “but every time I try to go and talk to them someone needs my attention. Frankly I think someone, probably Josh, is trying to stop me from going over.”

There’s another lapse of silence as he worries over the wound. From the looks of it, it’ll probably just become a fresh discolouration along the length of her leg rather than anything too messy - which is helpful, because she doesn’t need more scars that get her stares. He opts to bandage it again, saying it’s safer than risking what could happen if she got sand in it while there’s still parts fixing themselves up.

He leans back after throwing the remains of probably the last roll of bandages they have into a bag, giving her a small smile when she tucks the leg under her with the other one.

“Well I can try and give Josh something to do to give you a chance at figuring all that out?”

She smiles then too, “I’d really appreciate it.”

“Hey, this is gonna help us more than hurt us. I trust you.”

“I trust you too, Jack.”

They part ways on that, Jack staying amongst the small mess of the infirmary and waving her off as she pushes away the tarp and returns to the beach. There’s a lull in activity, but at this point in the afternoon there usually is; some people aren’t even here, out in the closest collective of trees to collect sticks and kindling for the fire tonight (and probably enough for the fire tomorrow too). 

Sayid finds her himself, sweat gleaming along his forehead and looking like something has just slightly ruffled his feathers. She doesn’t bring attention to his obvious mood switch, mildly wondering if he’s just gotten himself worked up from the situation this morning.

For a second he looks her up and down, eyes lingering a little on the fresh bandages she has, “I wish to ask you something.” Straight to the point, slightly abrupt, definitely in a mood.

Her hand comes to her hip, weight shifting onto her good leg, “shoot.”

“Jack wants to move people from the beach to the caves where the water is, I wanted to know where you stand.”

“Ah- well, out of everyone here I think I have the least control over where I’ll end up,” his eyebrows scrunch together and she panics, hoping he doesn’t get the wrong idea. Her hands wave around a little as she explains, “it’s just Sawyer and Josh. Sawyer, objectively, I like being in the same place with, but- Josh’ll get final say and, you know, he’s my brother and he gets worried so-.”

His lip quirks upwards slightly, “if he wants to move to the caves, you will too?”

“Depends if he convinces Sawyer to go or not,” she laughs a little and whatever remains of his sour expressions melts, “but if you’re that desperate to keep me around I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about. Josh hates the jungle anyway.” 

He nods, “enough on that. I wanted to ask if you’ve been able to figure out our problem today?”

“I plan to see if I can talk to Sun now,” she says, jutting her thumb in the direction of the pair still by the water, “I heard something earlier but I wanted to clarify, my Korean is.” Her hand tilts in a so-so motion.

She gets him to laugh and he waves her away, looking around before spotting Michael and heading off towards him. She hopes whatever’s going on with him and Jack can be sorted quick enough, though she imagines it’s probably a minor disagreement anyway.

Sucking in a breath, she finally turns back in the direction of Sun and Jin and decides it best to jog over. No one intercepts her this time.

Sun looks up at her, an unreadable expression on her face and she stands up away from Jin; the man looks at her too, and Ellie offers him a smile, she doesn’t want him to think she’s pissed at him or anything. If something’s troubling him, he doesn’t let it show.

Ellie pats around her waistband and curses slightly, she left her notebook back with all her stuff. A groan escapes her throat and Sun smiles slightly, laying a hand on her arms and asking her to talk, gesturing with her head to go a little further down the shoreline. Jin doesn’t make any vocal complaint as they wander away, though Sun looks back as if he’s supposed to; they make it far enough away that most of the noise they can hear is the sea, but they still have sight of Jin where he sits.

“You don’t have to keep writing to talk to me.”

Ellie nearly trips over and she’s not even moving anymore. Sun just spoke English. Like,  _ perfect English _ \- what the fuck!?

Sun smiles again, Ellie doesn’t even want to imagine what she looks like slack-jawed and wide-eyed right now, “I appreciate the effort though, I think Jin does too.”

“Oh my god.” Her brain feels like it’s short circuiting a bit, like the voices of a radio jumping between voices and static when going through a long tunnel; maybe she’s being dramatic but holy shit? “You- English? You speak English- this whole time?” Sun nods, “why haven’t you told anyone?”

“Jin doesn’t know,” she admits and Ellie almost falters again, “I don’t want him to know right now.”

“Okay... um- why me?“ Ellie still sounds, probably still looks, like a fish out of water, “I mean- why are you telling me?”

“Because you’re the only other person who can tell the others things I tell you without it looking suspicious,” valid, “your Korean is enough, you can understand most words from their point of view even if you can’t speak it.”

That makes sense. Ellie isn’t exactly sure why Jin doesn’t know about this major detail about his wife, but, personal reasons, personal problems, she’s sure. 

“I’m... I’m going to tell Michael why Jin attacked him, he deserves to know first hand, but I’d like if you told everyone else.”

She softens, still slightly open mouth closing into a half smile, “I can do that, Sun, I’m here for you.” And she is, she will be, for however long they’re stuck here or however long Sun decides to keep all this a secret from everyone. 

They share a hug, it’s short but tight, communicating warmth and understanding and it’s strange: they’ve been here a week, talked for a day, yet it feels like they’ve been friends for much longer. Ellie guesses that applies to everyone, some more than others.

She offers another amicable smile to Jin when she passes by again, leaving Sun to do what she needs to do as the sun starts to glitter against the backdrop of the ocean once again. 

Michael ends up springing Walt on her the second they make eye contact; he says it’ll be for five minutes while he goes to take a leak, but he takes a little longer than that and she figures the minor-but-threatening-looking conversation that follows between the man and Jin means Sun talked to him. 

Walt’s a good kid, quiet but curious. He doesn’t ask too many questions about the tension between his family and Sun’s, though that might just be because he’s practically quizzing her on every breed of wildcat and their different coat patterns (where he even comes up with these questions is a mystery to her, but it occupies them for the ten minutes Michael does take to come back).

Closer to the sun fully setting, Jack has his group of movers, the few who’d rather be closer to the fresh water or with their main doctor than a possible chance of rescue. She doesn’t blame them, not really, it’s a small group anyway: Sun, Jin, Hurley, and a couple of random guys she can’t fathom the names of, Charlie and Locke are already up there apparently so in total the cave camp is at eight, and the beach camp at roughly thirty-seven. 

Before they leave, Jack approaches where she’s stretching out aching muscles by the shore.

“What’s up, fearless leader,” she greets playfully.

He gives her a look but she pokes her tongue out between her teeth and he rolls her eyes like she’s some annoying little sister, “I‘m here to ask you something important, but,” he drags out the last word almost until she pouts and crosses her arm, “I’m kidding. I wanted to ask if you could keep an eye on everyone here, I asked Sayid the same but I didn’t want to leave either one of you with thirty-plus people to watch by yourself.”

“You sure you want me doing that? Not Kate?”

He shrugs, “you interact with more of these people, and you’re easy to talk to - you’re my first choice, especially for someone to work with Sayid.”

The corner of her lip quirks upwards, “you think they’ll all listen to little ol’ me?”

There’s a small wheeze, like the air leaving a balloon, and it makes her laugh too, “you’re small, but sometimes I think you’re scarier than Sayid, and if others don’t think that, well, he’s still here to help you out, isn’t he.”

“I guess he is. We’ll take care of everyone, don’t worry.”

“I’m not, cause I know you will.”

She manages to wrangle him into a hug, half tempted to latch onto him like a tree and see the look on James’ face if Jack just brought her back to camp like that. She holds herself back though, giving a good tight squeeze and making him promise he’ll bring everyone back to the beach if things get too dangerous before she lets him go to lead his minimal group into the greenery. 

It’s too cloudy to see anything in the sky that night so when the signal fire is lit it’s the only light they have. Ellie sits with James at her side, his hand pinned between her knees so she can wrap her arms around his in the closest thing to a hug he’ll allow with everyone around. Sayid sits across the fire with Kate next to him, she makes eye contact with both of them but only for a moment, and frankly she’s somewhat too tired to care if she looks like a child clinging to their parent in the dark right now. 

She loses focus easily, staring into the orange flames and letting the familiarity of James’ hand against her leg lull her into some sense of comfort, enough comfort to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll most likely be a small lull in chapters over December because of assignments IRL, a super important FTH fic I have to focus on, and the holidays coming up and taking my attention away, but I'll try and write where I can and get back to updating as soon as possible !
> 
> Thankyu so much for reading, I appreciate every single one of you


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